Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son

John Graham, pork-packer and self-made millionaire, writes to his son Pierrepont away at school, dispensing crude wisdom on business, women, and high society. The father wants his boy to become a gentleman. The son seems determined to become a wastrel. What follows is a satirical masterpiece disguised as a book of paternal advice. Lorimer captures the great American anxiety of his era: what happens when new money meets old pretensions? Graham's letters are earnest, misspelled, and hilariously wrong-headed, full of maxims that oscillate between shrewd and completely off-base. Yet beneath the comedy lies genuine tenderness - a father trying to prepare his son for a world he barely understands, and the awkward, loving collision between rough-hewn practicality and refined aspiration. The book was a sensation upon publication in 1901, going through dozens of editions, because Lorimer had found the exact nerve of his moment: the American dream's complicated relationship with the American gentleman.