Horatio Alger
In the 20th century, F. Scott Fitzgerald satirized Alger in his play The Vegetable: or From President to Postman (1922), the Dan Cody episode in The Great Gatsby (1925), and the short story "Forging Ahead" (1929). Nathaniel West parodied Alger in A Cool Million (1934). John Seelye did the same in Dirty Tricks; or, Nick Noxin's Natural Nobility (1973). Glendon Swarthout followed the sexual misadventures of an Alger anti-hero in Luck and Pluck (1973). William Gaddis took the Alger success story to absurd lengths in JR.