More from the Great Knee Wall Cleanout of 2023

Audrey’s Recompense by Mrs. Georgie Sheldon is an example of an American Women’s Dime novel. I’m going to guess that this belonged to my Great Grandmother Jesse Tyler Harris. The copyright is in the late 1800s, so maybe it first belonged to her mother, Jeanette McCornack Tyler. Or perhaps it just ended up at my mom’s house some other way.

It looks like, in the early 1900s a Ralph Victor wrote a series of ten books called Comrades Series for Boys. I have three of them, Comrades on the Great Divide, Comrades on Winton Oval, and Comrades with the Winton Cadets. The were part of the books from my Grandpa Green’s selection, but at least one of them has someone else’s name in it.

My Grandpa Green had quite a few books written by Horatio Alger Jr. I have at least three of them including, Facing the World, Young Salesman, and Five Hundred Dollars.

According to Wikipedia Alger “was an American author who wrote young adult novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of middle-class security and comfort through good works. His writings were characterized by the “rags-to-riches” narrative, which had a formative effect on the United States during the Gilded Age.”

Apparently, also according to Wikipedia, Alger was accused of child sexual abuse in 1866 and did not deny the accusations.

Everything about Horatio Alger Jr. is news to me today. I thought the Horatio Alger books were about a boy named Horatio Alger!

Three other books for boys that probably came from my Grandpa’s collection are Lucky the Young Soldier by E. Sherwood, Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle by Victor Appleton, and Tex Loses his Temper by Gordon Stewart.

Tex Loses his Temper belonged to my Uncle Richard. I thought this was interesting — his phone number ends with a letter: 2773-J.

The Bobbsey Twins in the Country, surprisingly to me, belonged to my Aunt Ginny’s husband when he was a child. He really never struck me as much of a reader, much less Bobbsey Twins books.