Fighting Modern Evils With Old Rare Books

by Stephen J. Gertz

MILLER, Fred S. Fighting Modern Evils That Destroy Our Homes
- A Startling Exposure of the Snares and Pitfals of the Social World
- Vividly Depicting How Homes Are Wrecked and Souls Destroyed
Through Wiles and Trickery of Mystic Cults.
N.P. [U.S. of Canada]: n.p. [the author], n.d. [c. 1913].

In the modern world each footfall is an opportunity to drop into an abyss and snowshoes won't prevent you from sinking into perdition. There is, however, a rich corpus of vintage self-help, instructional and inspirational literature to keep you from drowning in a pool of damnation.

Here's a small selection, from Old New Age, the latest catalog from David Mason Rare Books.

KRESS, Daniel H. The Cigarette.
As a Physician Sees It.
Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publ., [c. 1932].

Modern Evil #1: Cigarettes.

Pacific Press Publishers of Mountain View, California was a Seventh Day Adventist venture dedicated to educational titles on activities that lead to the road to ruin. Get your kicks on Route 666 and experience Hell Before Death.

Here, inside the Los Angeles Coliseum during the 1932 Olympic Games, the U.S. track team doc examines a runner prior to race time. Judging by the expression on the Olympian's face, he's just been diagnosed with Stage-3 lung cancer and congestive heart failure. Will he make it to the finish line?

Not too long after this pamphlet appeared, Big Tobacco would recruit doctors real or otherwise to endorse their products in advertisements, M.D.s who, apparently, had their fingers crossed when taking the Hippocratic Oath.

HORN, M[ildred]. A. Mother and Daughter.
A Digest for Women and Growing Girls,
Which Completely Covers the Field of Sex Hygiene.
Toronto: Canadian Hygienic Products Ltd, n.d. [c. 1940s].

Modern Evil #2: Reckless Teen Behavior.

Young girls - you know who you are - have you no shame? Want to find a good husband? Have children? Lead a long, wholesome life? Listen to your mother! She'll teach you all about the science of keeping clean, healthy, and happy! You'll be miserable but so what? Fun is over-rated.

HALE, Beatrice Forbes Robertson. What Women Want.
An Interpretation of the Feminist Movement.
New York: Frederick Stokes, (1914).

Modern Evil #3: Feminism.

Damned suffragettes were tearing the social fabric in America and England, the contemporary social fabric an easily stained synthetic silk with rough threads; good riddance. 

Actress, suffragist, prolific author and lecturer Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale (1883-1967), niece of J. Forbes Robertson,  the famed London actor and theater manager, was an ardent feminist who married young Wall Street lawyer Swinburne Hale in 1910. He was "won by her speeches…Young attorney began ardent courtship after hearing her espouse woman's cause" (NY Times, April 29, 1910)

"Miss Forbes-Robertson will not give up the stage nor abate her efforts on behalf of the woman suffrage cause after her marriage to Mr. Hale. She has been prominently connected with the campaign for woman suffrage in both England and in this country, where she has been of large service through her platform eloquence.

"She is a finished speaker, and though she has never become associated with the extreme militant suffragettes closely enough to accomplish arrest, she has done a great deal of platform work here and abroad" (Ibid).

The Hales divorced in 1920 and Beatrice returned home to England but continued to visit the United States and remained fully engaged in the women's rights movement.

Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale was, it seems, a bit naive about her sisters in the struggle. Margaret Sanger, in The Woman Rebel,  her law-challenging journal, wrote:

"Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale said at a debate on feminism that she knew of only two feminists who advocated free love and unmarried motherhood, and that they were not suffragists, but anarchists. What a limited knowledge of women Mrs. Hale has! Perhaps after all self respect and morality are confined to the anarchist women!"

What Women Want is a very rare book with only a handful of copies in institutional holdings worldwide. Read the full text here.

VOM BRUCH, Harry W. The Carnival of Death.
Or the Modern Dance and Other Amusements.
Mont Morris, IL: Kable Brothers Co., n.d. [c. late 1910s].

Modern Evil #4: Dancing.

Dancing had been viewed as sinful as far back as the eighteenth century but with the influx of single girls into the urban workforce the perils of the dance hall did a grand jeté into the evangelical congregation with jeremiads aplenty.

The tacit terpsichorean culprit in Carnival of Death is, I suspect, the Black Bottom, which originated in New Orleans in the first decade of the 20th century. Its roots in African-American culture made it Public Enemy #1 amongst the decline of the West set.

Am I alone in mourning the passing of dances with names? The Black Bottom, Charleston, Lindy Hop, Jitterbug, Mambo. Cha-Cha, Merengue, Rhumba, Bossa Nova, the Swim, the Frug, the Shing-a-ling, the Monkey, the Mashed Potatoes, Watusi, Hully-Gully, the Shake, the Twist, the Funky Chicken, Pony, the Loco-motion, the Freddy,  the Bump, the Hustle, Macarena - even those dreaded of all social-banquet dances, the Hokey-Pokey and the Bunny Hop: quick, what's the name of the latest dance of 2012-2013? The Whatever.

ELLESBY, James. A Caution Against Ill Company:
Or, a Discourse Shewing the Danger of
Conversing Familiarly With Bad Men.
London: F.C. & J. Rivington, 1812.
Tenth edition.

Modern Evil #5: Bad Men.

Reverend James Ellesby, author of The Sick Christian's Companion (1729) -  no smirking, please; the book is a selection of prayers to endure illness, not a guide for Christians of dubious turn of mind - here cautions against females engaging in casual social intercourse with bad men; it can lead to that other casual intercourse, you know, the one that leads to the streets. From hello to Hell is only one lost virtuous vowel away.

Come on, gals, 'fess-up. Bad men are catnip! This is why, only hours after my Bar Mitzvah, I immediately began riding Harleys without a license, using bad language, smoking, playing pool, hanging-out on street corners, staying up past my bedtime, and generally flouting authority so egregiously that I was routinely remanded by the court to my room without supper. In short, I became a chicklette-magnet, 11 and 12-year old vampettes vying for the attention of this older, thirteen year old man so incredibly wise, so astonishingly smart, so breathtakingly handsome, so overweeningly conceited, and desperate to become an excommunicated Boy Scout but too milquetoast for misdemeanors, much less felonies.

"He's irresistible. He treats me like crap. I'm in love!"

HARRIS, Rev. W.S.. Hell Before Death.
With Illustrations by Paul Krafft.
N.P.: (Luther Minter): n.d. [c. 1908].
By Subscription Only.

Modern Evil #6: Capitalism.

Hell Before Death author, Rev. W.S. Harris, "who has devoted many years in securing better conditions for humanity," writes:

"Under the whip of monopolistic slavemasters, the host of common people, generally known as laborers, are getting deeper into bondage…This movement on the part of Labor was perhaps the most fortunate thing that could have happened; for, if capitalistic oppression had continued unchecked for a few decades more, by this time, the nation would be owned and controlled by a few great moguls, and the great bulk of humanity would be reduced to a new type of slavery even more abject than the kind under which we now suffer" (from the Preface. Full text of Hell Before Death here).

Sure glad that didn't happen.

SOUTHARD, R.E. Problems of Decency.
(St. Louis): The Queen's Work, n.d. [c. 1949].

Modern Evil #7: Indecency.

The Catholic University of America library has 742 publications, pamphlets and magazines from The Queen's Work, a Jesuit publishing house based in St. Louis and the pioneer mass circulation magazine to popularize the Catholic faith.

It was founded and edited by Daniel Aloysius Lord, S.J. (1888-1955), a popular American Catholic writer. Lord became national director of the Sodality of Our Lady in 1926, also serving as editor of its publication, The Queen's Work magazine. He stepped down from editorship in 1948, but continued to write for the magazine for the remainder of his life, producing more than 500 pamphlets, plays, and songs.

In 1927, he served as a consultant to Cecil B. DeMille for his silent film, King of Kings. The advent of talkies alarmed him. "Silent smut had been bad," he would write in his autobiography, Played by Ear. "Vocal smut cried to the censors for vengeance."

In 1929, he began work on Hollywood's Production Code. "Here was a chance," he wrote, "to read morality and decency into mass recreation." He aimed "to tie the Ten Commandments in with the newest and most widespread form of entertainment," aspiring to an ecumenical standard of decency, so that "the follower of any religion, or any man of decent feeling and conviction, would read it and instantly agree."

In 1930, Lord's draft of the Code was accepted by Will H. Hays and promulgated to the studios with only minor changes, but it lacked an enforcement mechanism, and Lord came to consider it a failure. It was only with the mid-1934 advent of the Production Code Administration headed by Joseph Breen that the Code became the law of Hollywood for more than twenty-five years.

Clean up the movies? Sanitized for your protection? Mission accomplished!

GAYNOR, R. Leo. The Mysteries of Luck,
Together With Invaluable Information on the Occult
Science of Astrology, Numerology, Graphology, etc.
N.P. [Canada?}: W.K. Buckley, n.d. [ c. 1936].

All the self-help and inspirational books in the world will not, of course, be of any value whatsoever unless Lady Luck takes a liken' to ya' and makes it all better. But don't tell Dr. Phil.

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Images courtesy of David Mason Rare Books, currently offering these titles, with our thanks.
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Vivid Criminal Slang on the City Streets of France

by Stephen J. Gertz

L'Argot de "Milieu" was a groundbreaking and influential dictionary of criminal and low-life French slang, born of the fascination with crime and criminals that had swept early 20th century France in the wake of modern advances in forensics  that had allowed, for the first time, the tracking, apprehension, and prosecution of criminals using scientific methods.

Author Jean Lacassagne (1886-1960), who also wrote under the pseudonym, François Seringard,  was the son of the great Lyon forensic criminologist, Alexandre Lacassagne (1843-1924), was head of the Lyon prison medical service, and took a lifelong interest in the darker side of human nature, conducting many studies of French criminal subculture. This book was reprinted and revised several times but the first edition, with its striking color illustration by French painter, illustrator, and engraver André Dignimont (1891-1965, and known for his stylish erotica), is scarce.

Lacassagne fils became the doctor of a regiment during the First World War, and received his Ph.D. in 1916. He was also one of founders of l'Association républicaine pour favoriser les études médicales 1923-1924, becoming one of the most active members.  He became a knight in the Legion of Honor in 1925.

As Clinical Director at Antiquaille he was a specialist in venereal diseases, treating prostitutes and detainees. In 1945 he received a medal from the prison for twenty five years of service.

Like his father, he was extremely interested in criminal anthropology.  He published articles and books inspired by his meetings and correspondence with criminals. He observed their tattoos, studied their slang, investigated their history, psychology, and collected their reminiscences.

Writer of the Preface, Francis Carco, fantaisiste poet, novelist, and art critic, published several works in Parisian argot depicting the street life of Montmartre. 

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 LACASSAGNE. Docteur Jean. L'Argot du "Milieu." Préface de Francis Carco. Paris: Albin Michel, n.d. [1928]. First edition. Octavo (186 x 119 mm), xxii, 293, [1] pp. Pictorial wrappers, illustrated by André Dignimont.

Reprinted in 1935, 1948, 1951, and 1955. The edition of 1935 reproduces the original wrapper illustration but with the title text design revised.

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Images from L'Argot du "Milieu" courtesy of Justin Croft Antiquarian Books, with our thanks.

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The High Cost of "Etiquette" in a Rude World (1922 Edition)

by Stephen J. Gertz

First edition, 1922.

We, at Booktryst, are the soul of courtesy and decorum. When we open a book we invite the lady to step inside and read first. While we digest a book's content we restrain public effusions of flatulence.  We keep our mouth closed while reading and never, never, move our lips, or use a finger (because even though it's ours we don't know where it's been) when scanning text. 

When reading responsively we are always courteous: "After you, Gaston." "No, after you, Marcel." "No, Gaston, I insist." "Well, then..." We never read in our undershorts by the front window with the shades open; mother would be horrified and what about the neighbors? Our marginalia is executed in the finest penmanship because the hand reflects the mind and  sloppy handwriting reflects an uncultivated intellect. When we turn a page it is done with a gentle pinch of the upper right corner with thumb and index finger and with balletic grace, pinky extended,  we draw it over to reveal the next one. We formally greet each new page as it appears; we are not anti-social barbarians,  nor are we  Philistines.

When meeting with our book club we confine our individual alcoholic consumption to three bottles of  fine, vintage Pouilly-Fuissé, and our use of illegal drugs to four elegantly rolled fat-boy joints of Monster Purple  OMG OG Kush; poorly rolled spliffs of cheap Mexican pot reflect poor breeding - of the marijuana and the consumer. Though in an altered state alternating between blissful reverie and bleak psychosis we keep our inner world inside and never, apropos of nothing (or all too apropos), openly exclaim, "Everything is everything; we are the universe and it's a gang-written book composed by rotten writers!" while another member expresses their puerile thoughts on All  I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. It just isn't done.

All we really need to know we learned in Emily Post's Etiquette (1922).

Welcome. Please come in.  Social grace and a slice of warm pie served here.

A first edition, first printing of this classic is not a terribly expensive book. A first edition, first printing in fine condition in its original dust jacket in fine condition is, however, a true scarcity and a very expensive volume. Though public discussions of money are trés uncouth, we nonetheless, at the risk of being socially ostracized, descend to the rude and note the  asking price of a lollapalooza copy  in DJ currently in the  marketplace: $15,000. Before you slap your head and shout, "Oh, my butt-fucking God!" remember that "Nearly all the faults or mistakes in conversation are caused by not thinking. For instance, a first rule for behavior in society is: 'Try to do and say those things only which will be agreeable to others'" (Chapter 7, Conversation). 

A first edition, first printing copy in fine condition without the dust jacket is a $1000 - $1500 book.  Copies, when found, are usually a holy wreck; the volume was heavily read and re-read, the dust jacket soon a shambles if not tossed away. The  jacket is incredibly scarce and, as with a handful of modern firsts, everything.

What's the big deal about Etiquette by Emily Post?

Teaching children the proper and polite use of eating utensils.

There is arguably no other book that so captures a key period in American socio-cultural history. Etiquette was part of a larger, aspirational movement during the 1920s, feminism at the far end of its second stage, and, after our involvement and victory in WWI brought the U.S. to the center of attention, a desire for America to shake off its raw, rustic character and behave like a cultured nation. 

For the average woman, self-improvement, heightened awareness and desire for personal beauty in clothing and make-up, education, and an ambition to provide the best in nourishment and domestic comfort for her family became imperatives. Consumerism was on the rise, the good life at hand. A true middle class was emerging and speedily growing and it wanted all that could be considered "classy" in their lives. People wanted to be ladies and gentlemen. The spittoon on the floor in the corner had to go. Table manners were in; rude behavior out. Americans wanted to be all that they could be; the country bumpkin was an embarrassment. Quality and taste were the watchwords, "best society" the aim.

A Bride's Bouquet.

“'SOCIETY' is an ambiguous term; it may mean much or nothing. Every human being—unless dwelling alone in a cave—is a member of society of one sort or another, and therefore it is well to define what is to be understood by the term “Best Society” and why its authority is recognized. Best Society abroad is always the oldest aristocracy; composed not so much of persons of title, which may be new, as of those families and communities which have for the longest period of time known highest cultivation. Our own Best Society is represented by social groups which have had, since this is America, widest rather than longest association with old world cultivation. Cultivation is always the basic attribute of Best Society, much as we hear in this country of an 'Aristocracy of wealth'...

"The personality of a room is indefinable, but there never lived
a lady of great cultivation and charm whose home, whether a
palace or farm-cottage or a tiny apartment, did not reflect the
charm of its owner."

"...Best Society is not at all like a court with an especial queen or king, nor is it confined to any one place or group, but might better be described as an unlimited brotherhood which spreads over the entire surface of the globe, the members of which are invariably people of cultivation and worldly knowledge, who have not only perfect manners but a perfect manner. Manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them; manner is personality—the outward manifestation of one’s innate character and attitude toward life. A gentleman, for instance, will never be ostentatious or overbearing any more than he will ever be servile, because these attributes never animate the impulses of a well-bred person. A man whose manners suggest the grotesque is invariably a person of imitation rather than of real position...

A Dinner Service Without Silver, Chapter 14.
A dinner service without silver—“The little dinner is thought
by most people to be the very pleasantest social function there is.”

"...Thus Best Society is not a fellowship of the wealthy, nor does it seek to exclude those who are not of exalted birth; but it is an association of gentle-folk, of which good form in speech, charm of manner, knowledge of the social amenities, and instinctive consideration for the feelings of others, are the credentials by which society the world over recognizes its chosen members" (Chapter One to the 1922  first edition).

The Afternoon Tea-Table, Chapter 13.
“The afternoon tea table is the same in its service whether
in the tiny bandbox house of the newest bride, or in the
drawing-room of Mrs. Worldly of Great Estates.”

The book was written by a woman, for women. It was up to wives and mothers to indoctrinate their husbands and children to good manners and genteel behavior.

An Informal Dinner, Chapter 14.
“At an informal dinner, the table appointments are equally
fine and beautiful, though possibly not quite so rare.”

 To later generations it may all seem at best quaint, at worst phony. We've learned that the "best" people can be the worst, that wealth is no guarantee of anything except money, and that good manners can often be a screen for  despicable behavior. We no longer look to our "superiors" for social guidance. To the contrary, the evolution of democracy in America has led, from the 1960s forward, to a depreciation of respect for upper and middle-class values and standards, an appreciation in esteem for the common man, and often a celebration of the values of society's outcasts, even as we aspire to be rich and famous. Indeed, the current crop of the rich and famous seem to have little if any class at all.

The Ideal Guest Room, Chapter 25.
“The ideal guest room is never found except in the house
of the ideal hostess; and it is by no means idle talk to suggest
 that every hostess be obliged to spend twenty-four hours
every now and then in each room set apart for visitors.”

This has, in general, been a good thing - honesty is the winner - yet informality and the devaluation of standards of good manners, civility, courtesy and politeness in honest expression have taken their toll. These customs are not the exclusive realm of the upper crust, they are the universal kingdom of civil behavior and the social grease that keeps us from grinding each other up. They, at their most fundamental level, demonstrate basic respect for the individual, something that all of us wish to receive but rarely, alas, generously offer.

Consideration of the Servants, Chapter 12.
“The perfect mistress shows all those in her employ the
consideration and trust due them as honorable, self-respecting
and conscientious human beings.”

A first edition in dust jacket of Etiquette by Emily Post may seem at first glance to be a cockamamie collectible at an unholy price. It is, rather, one of the most important and influential non-fiction American books of the first half of the twentieth century. Its philosophy of living  life with grace and simple respect for others as its own reward remains timeless in general if not in contemporary particulars. The current corruption of civilized behavior is nothing to be proud of.

Those seeking to change the world can start by paying more attention to their etiquette. A first edition, first printing in dust jacket of Etiquette by Emily Post may be expensive but practicing graceful etiquette in daily life is free.

Now in its eighteenth edition, Etiquette has never been out of print; it is certainly never out of style.

The full text to the 1922 first edition can be read here.

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POST, Emily [Mrs. Price Post]. Etiquette. In Society, In Business, In Politics, and at Home. Illustrated with Private Photographs and Facsimiles of Social Forms. New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1922. Octavo. xix, 627 p. Fourteen black and white photo-illustrations, including frontispiece.  Dust jacket.

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Images courtesy of Whitmore Rare Books, currently offering this copy in scarce DJ, with our thanks.
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More dust jacket madness tomorrow on Booktryst:  The $175,000 Dust Jacket Comes to Auction. Don't miss it.
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From the Rarified Air to the Lower Orders of London

Over the past two weeks, Booktryst contributor Cokie Anderson has written about How the Other .0001 % Lives, Part I and II, presenting us with the splendid estates and extravagant parties of the wealthy as documented in a few rare and sumptuously exquisite volumes.

We now turn our attention away from the thin-air blue-blood status exosphere to its polar opposite, the thick swamp gas red-blood low-life troposphere where most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries' population endured its have-not existence.

Rabbit-Man.

By its title and subtitle, Costume of the Lower Orders of London Painted and Engraved From Nature, a volume of twenty-four hand-colored etched plates by Thomas Lord Busby published in 1820, succinctly expresses the contemporary view amongst a certain socio-economic class that other socio-economic classes of people were of a lower order of primate. There is an almost zoo-like quality to this suite of plates, the viewer (undoubtedly of means; this was not an inexpensive book when originally issued) fascinated by these strange creatures heard about but rarely seen - you had to leave the castle, cross the defensive social moat, and step in the muck to meet them.

Billy Waters.

Match Girl.

You will have perhaps noticed that these portraits have been cleaned up to keep the visual stink of reality from offending the viewer; it is a Hollywood-lesque version of a reality that was deeply begrimed and malodorous.

No such visual euphemism is employed in Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor.

Mayhew was “the first to strike out the line of philanthropic journalism which takes the poor of London as its theme. His principal work, in which he was assisted by John Binny and others, was ‘London Labour and London Poor,’ a series of articles, anecdotic and statistical, on the petty trades of London, originally appearing in the ‘Morning Chronicle.’ Two volumes were published in 1851, but their circulation was interrupted by litigation in chancery, and was long suspended, but in March 1856 Mayhew announced its resumption, and a continuation of it appeared in serial monthly parts as ‘The Great World of London,’ which was ultimately completed and published as ‘The Criminal Prisons of London,’ in 1862. The last portion of it was by Binny. ‘London Labour and the London Poor’ appeared in its final form in 1864, and again in 1865” (DNB).

In the London of this era a large number of people had no fixed place employment and a significant number had no fixed place to live; you earned your money on the streets and slept there. At the lowest rung of the social ladder stood the "mudlarks" who searched the reeking sludge on the banks of the Thames for wood, metal, rope and coal from passing ships, and the "pure-finders," whose job it was to gather dog feces to sell to tanners. These do not make for pretty portraits; let's leave Smell-O-Vision to the next century. No amount of scrubbing, with soap or paint brush, could make this class of untouchables clean enough to be viewed by those highest in England's pecking order.

While Mayhew took a journalistic and, at times, maddeningly pedantic approach to his research, Lord Busby went slumming and the result was a romanticized, nobless oblige view of the impoverished yet  apparently happy, carefree, laughing, singing, dancing folk whose spirit and love of life were as inspiring to the British nobility as the noble Tom, Jemima, and pickaninny were to the plantation owner of the antebellum American South.

In short, poverty and degradation ennobled as a blessing. Oh, long green envying deep grime! If only all our money could buy their joie de vivre but, alas, we're filthy rich and will just have to make the best of it. (Heavy sigh). Now, let's get out of this zoo and get back home; I feel gamy.

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[BUSBY, Thomas Lord]. Costume of the Lower Orders of London. Painted and Engraved from Nature, by T.L. Busby. London: Published for T.L. Busby, by Messrs. Baldwin, Craddock, and Joy… [1820]. Quarto (11 1/4 x 9 1/16 inches; 286 x 231 mm.). iv, [24] pp. Twenty-four hand-colored etched plates. Text watermarked 1817, plates watermarked 1822. Abbey, Life 423. Colas 491. Hiler, p. 129. Lipperheide 1025. Tooley 123.

MAYHEW, Henry. London Labour and the London Poor: The Condition and Earnings of Those That Will Work, Cannot Work, and Will Not Work. London: Griffin, Bohn and Co. 1851-61. Four octavo volumes (numbered I-III and “Extra Volume” subtitled, “a cyclopædia of the condition and earnings of those that will work…,” etc.). With ninety-seven wood-engraved plates. Text in two columns.

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Police Blotter: A Brief Census of Herbert Asbury's America

 First edition, 1940.

Yeah, I read da books: The French Quarter, Gem of the Prairie, The Gangs of New York, The Barbary Coast.  Dis guy, Herbert Asbury, poked around where no one else had the brass. He went back to the old days - my days - and into the shadows.  Talked about dem in dat ol' gang o'mine; jeez, what a parade o' personalities.  It wuz a time when and a world where  a person's name told you a thing or two. I knew 'em all; we wuz friends. I raise a glass and toast to Auld Ang Syne; dese old acquaintances won't be forgot.

First edition, 1933.

Oh, there wuz Big Louise, Big Matilda, Big Lotta, Big Maud, Big Nellie, Big Mary,  Big Jack Zelig, an' Big Nose Bunker; Kate Bunty, Calico Jim, Chew Tin Gop; Dutch Emma, Italian Dave, Dago Frank,  English Jim, London Izzy Lazarus, an' Irish Annie Davis; The Girl in Blue, Happy Hooligan, Shanghai Kelly, Nymphia, One Year Tim, Oofty Goofty Gus, Pigeon-Toed Sal, Rotary Rosie; Spanish Kitty, Spanish Johnny, an' Spanish Louie; Steam-Schooner Ruby, Three-Fingered Jack, Battle Annie, Yakey-Yake Brady, Gold Mine Jimmy, an' Hell Cat Maggie; Kid Dropper, Kid Twist, Kid Jigger, Kid Dahl, Kid Glove Rosie, an' The Lobster Kid; Monk Eastman,  Circular Jack,  an' Crazy Butch; Red Phil Davidson, an' Red Rocks Farrell; Ding Dong, Hinky Dink, an' Dandy Johnny Dolan.

Gangs of New York. First edition, 1928.

An' there wuz Little Annie, Little Augie, Little Kishky, Little Rhody, an' Little Patsy Doyle; Banjo Pete, Dopey Bennie Fein, Mag Gallus,  an' Breezy Garrity; Jane the Grabber, Lizzie the Dove, Gyp the Blood, Ike the Plug, Ike the Blood, Patsy the Barber, Ida the Goose, Sadie the Goat, Harry the Soldier, Louie the Lump, Jack the Rat, Joe the Greaser, Bill the Butcher, Paddy the Bear, Sweeney the Boy, Cora the Blonde, Charley the Cripple, Benny the Dip, an' Johnny the Mick; Itsky Joe Hickman, Silver Dollar Smith, Hoochy-Coochie Mary, an' Hungry Joe Lewis. 

First edition, 1936.

Yeah, an' there wuz Humpty Jackson,  Jewbach, Bathhouse John, Sheeny Mike Kurtz, Scotchy Lavelle, Pickles Laydon,   Cyclone Louie,  an' Lefty Lewis Rosenberg; Blind Mahoney, Bum Mahoney, Stumpy Malarkey, Dinny Meehan, One-Armed Charley  Monell, an' Happy Jack Mulraney; Nigger Ruhl, Nigger Mike Salter, an' Nigger Benny Snyder; Nellie Noonan, Old Mother Hubbard, Lottie "Queen of the Cokies" Hustion, Queen Liz, an' Eugene "King of the Cokies" Hustion;  there wuz Beanie Rosenthal, Greedy Jack Rand, Chick Tricker, Mush Riley, Rags Riley, Razor Riley,  Piker Ryan, Rubber Shaw, Sassy Sam, Tommy Shay, Terrible John, an' Slobbery Jim.

 First edition in paperback, 1950. Avon 263.

Jeez, I miss 'em.  Whuda cast o' characters.

I'm Stosh Gershowitz. But my friends call me Readin' Steve, the Ball-Bearin' Hebe, on account of I once clipped a kid of his Spaldeen right smack in fronta his mother while I wuz perusin' a book at da time. Da mom musta thought I wuz a student, a solid citizen. I wuz. I wuz a student at Onthestreet U.  Got my diploma in The Big Con. 

First edition in paperback, 1962. Ace K-148.

I'm  with Goldman Sachs, now. Feel right at home. There's Mortgage Macher Mike,  Brass Balls Billy Malone, Sub-Prime Pete,  Big Bubble Bob,  Speculator Jones, Arbitrage Arnie,  Dandy Dan Derivatives, Sinkin' Dollar Dave, Kid Quant, Eddie the Gyp Econ, Moe the  Market-maker, an' Slimeball Sammy Sell-Short... These guys; jeez, I thought I knew all the angles. I'm tellin' ya, I'm in grad school.

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ASBURY, Herbert. The Gangs of New York. An Informal History of the Underworld. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928. Octavo. xviii, 382 pp.

ASBURY, Herbert. The Barbary Coast. An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1933. Octavo. 319, xi pp.
 

ASBURY, Herbert. The French Quarter. An Informal History of the French Underworld. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1936. Octavo. 462, xvi pp.

ASBURY, Herbert. Gem of the Prairie. An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1940. Octavo. 377, xix pp. Reprinted as Gangs of Chicago.

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All names are real, and found in the books.
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Image of Gangs of New York courtesy of Between the Covers. Image of The French Quarter courtesy of Madame Talbot.
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