Holy Horatio!

Since 1928, Herbert R. Mayes' Alger; A Biography Without a Hero has served as the standard reference work on Horatio Alger Jr., the 19th century author of 109 novels about poor but honest boys who rise to success. Mayes, then a young journalist, went on to become a successful magazine editor (Good Housekeeping, McCall's). But he did not quite live up to the example of Alger heroes. The book that has been consulted by scholars for decades, Mayes has quietly revealed, is -- gads! -- a hoax.

"Nobody bothered to do any digging," explains Mayes, who is now 73 and living in London. He says that he wrote the book as a satire and was shocked when reviewers took it seriously. He confesses that the book "literally swarms" with contradictions and absurd fabrications. Mayes has Alger frolicking with a prostitute in Paris when he was actually attending divinity school in Massachusetts. The biographer invented a diary for his subject and even gave Alger a stammer and the fortitude to over come it--all done without possessing the slightest bit of evidence to back up his assertions had he been challenged.

Apart from the pleasure he has derived from seeing himself solemnly quoted by critics and historians for years, Mayes kept his deception a secret in order to avoid embarrassing his publisher, George Macy, and one of the book's original reviewers, Harry Hansen, who urged his readers not to miss the biography and eventually became a close friend. Mayes finally decided to confess when he was asked to comment on criticisms of his book made in the more recent Alger biography by Ralph Gardner. The Horatio Alger Society, based in Lansing, Mich., and made up of 250 book buffs, provided a happy ending.

Rather than become indignant, it offered Mayes membership.

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