Ragged Dick

Dirty Tricks or, Nick Noxin’s Natural Nobility, by John Seelye. New York: Liveright. 152 pp.

Of all American myths “rags to riches” has been the most stubbornly enduring. Time may be right for a parting glimpse of our cherished national fiction. Apart from John Seelye’s Dirty Tricks or, Nick Noxin’s Natural Nobility, another, older book is relevant: Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick (Macmillan, 1962; paper, 1966), a nov...