Charles Roussel; or, Industry and Honesty is about a teenage boy and his family, left homeless and destitute after the death of the father. The story describes how success and fulfillment naturally arises from living a Christ-centered life regardless of the hardships and setbacks of the world in which we live.
Translated from the French and published in 1853 by The Religious Tract Society in London at the height of their commercial success as a publishing house, the novel was intended for what we now call the “young adult” market—with an entertaining story seasoned with a moral in every chapter.