Fiction · 1872
Phil, the Fiddler
Phil is one of many Italian boys brought to New York under a padrone who owns their labor outright — sent out to play violin on the streets for hours every day and beaten if he doesn't bring back enough money, with no real path out of the arrangement until he decides to run. Alger uses his usual formula, but the padrone system itself was a real and well-documented abuse at the time, not an invented villain.
Alger published Phil, the Fiddler in 1872, drawing on real, contemporary reporting about the exploitation of Italian immigrant children in American cities.
Bibliomancer publishes the 1872 text exactly as Horatio Alger wrote it.
Contents
- Preface
- Chapter I — Phil the Fiddler
- Chapter II — Phil and His Protector
- Chapter III — Giacomo
- Chapter IV — An Invitation to Supper
- Chapter V — On the Ferry Boat
- Chapter VI — The Barroom
- Chapter VII — The Home of the Boys
- Chapter VIII — A Cold Day
- Chapter IX — Pietro the Spy
- Chapter X — French’s Hotel
- Chapter XI — The Boys Reception
- Chapter XII — Giacomo’s Presentiments
- Chapter XIII — Phil Finds a Capitalist
- Chapter XIV — The Tambourine Girl
- Chapter XV — Phil’s New Plans
- Chapter XVI — The Fashionable Party
- Chapter XVII — The Padrone Is Anxious
- Chapter XVIII — Phil Eludes His Pursuer
- Chapter XIX — Pietro’s Pursuit
- Chapter XX — Pietro’s Disappointment
- Chapter XXI — The Siege
- Chapter XXII — The Siege Is Raised
- Chapter XXIII — A Pitched Battle
- Chapter XXIV — The Death of Giacomo
- Chapter XXV — Phil Finds a Friend
- Chapter XXVI — Conclusion
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About this edition
The text is free of copyright. This edition was prepared from an authoritative digitisation, processed by Bibliomancer under its own review protocol; every automated correction is recorded in its transformation log. Rights assessed for CA, EU, GB, US.
Source mind
About the author
1832–1899 · Victorian
Horatio Alger Jr. (1832–1899) was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard in 1852, and was ordained a Unitarian minister, serving a congregation in Brewster, Massachusetts, until 1866, when he was dismissed after a church investigation found he had sexually abused boys in the parish. He moved to New York City, where he volunteered with the Newsboys' Lodging House and turned to writing juvenile fiction full-time; Ragged Dick (1868) established the rags-to-riches formula — a poor boy's rise through pluck, hard work and a timely stroke of luck — that he repeated across more than a hundred subsequent novels for boys, Phil, the Fiddler (1872) among them.
Adjacent records
