The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus

Horatio Alger, Jr. (1832 – 1899) was a prolific American author of the 19-th century. His writings were characterized by the "rags-to-riches" narrative, which had a formative effect on America during the Gilded Age. Alger best known for his many juvenile novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of middle-class security and comfort through hard work, determination, courage, and honesty.

The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus is a boys' book by Horatio Alger, Jr. It was first published in parts in the magazine Golden Argosy in 1887. The setting of the book was suggested to the writer by his friend, circus showman P. T. Barnum. The storyline focuses on a young teen orphan boy named Kit, who runs away from his mean uncle where he had a grueling job as a blacksmith's apprentice and later joins the circus. Kit quickly adjusts to circus life and establishes himself as a skilled acrobat. When the circus closes for the season in Albany, New York, a wealthy gentleman named Henry Miller, who an old friend of Kit's father, gets in touch with Kit. He feels certain that Kit's uncle, Stephen