Release date is 2025-11-10

Aaron Adrignola, Brian Wilsden, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

"Larry Barlow's Ambition" by Edward Stratemeyer is an adventure novel written in the early 20th century. It follows Larry Barlow, a plucky orphaned machinist and volunteer fireman whose dream is to join the New York City Fire Department, balancing daring rescues with an invention of a powerful extension ladder and a budding mystery tied to his late father’s lost elevator patent and a girl he saves, Mary Vern. Expect brisk firefighting action, urban scrapes, and an undercurrent of intrigue as Larry tries to turn ambition into honorable service.

At the start, Larry builds a model for a steel extension ladder, loses his machinist job after a run‑in with a bully, and makes a brief trip to New York where he’s thrilled by a fire run and overhears two men hinting at exploiting his missing father’s elevator invention. Back home he leads volunteers at a hotel blaze, rescues Mary Vern from a smoke-choked upper floor, and survives a dramatic leap into a net; her grateful father gives him an introduction to a fire commissioner. In the city, Larry is nearly drowned during a warehouse flood before being pulled out, secures entry into the fire department’s school of instruction, and finds a modest flat for himself and his sister. Meanwhile he defends a newsboy from a street bully, eavesdrops on a schemer (Martin Pollox) plotting around the elevator patent and name-drops Richard Vern—who is then reported killed—endures a waterfront ambush by local toughs, escapes a misguided arrest, and finally begins formal training before unexpectedly meeting Mary again in New York. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Akron: Saalfield Publishing Company, 1907