Herbert Asbury

An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld Gamblers/Pirates/Madams Adventurers/River Boat Bullies Loose Ladies/Vigilantes Voodoo Queens/Crooked Politicians ...meet them all during New Orleans' golden age of glamour and spectacular wickedness.

This classic history of crime tells how Chicago's underworld earned and kept its reputation.

Examination of the history of illegal gambling in the US from colonial days to the 1930s. Addresses faro, policy, the numbers, old lotteries, poker, craps, and more. Appears to be well-researched. Asbury has a fine hand at creating enjoyable, anecdotal history of illegal activities. Discusses many of the colorful figures involved in these games of chance, which often were rigged. My only issue is that it assumes a pre-existing knowledge about these games. Unless you already know how a policy or numbers game works, you will spend a lot of time in the weeds. Asbury is the author of Gangs of New York. He was the source of the Hatrack story made famous in Mencken's American Mercury Magazine.

The is a police procedural mystery. It is the rare work of pure fiction written by Herbert Asbury, a early 20th century newsman. The work evokes late 1920s Manhattan, and other environs like Chinatown. If you like old fashioned mystery stories this may hit the spot. I would class it with Latimore's work. Same sort of grittiness. Be advised that like much work of this time, the book dabbles in racism. In this instance, it is the Chinese getting the treatment. Also, to some extent, Italians.

"In 1926, Herbert Asbury, great-great-nephew of Francis Asbury, the first American Bishop of the Methodist Church, submitted a chapter of his profane work-in-progress, an almost spiteful memoir of his boyhood in Farmington, Missouri to H.L. Mencken's American Mercury magazine. Mencken published "Hatrack," the story of the town prostitute. The Mercury was then banned in Boston at the incitement of the New England Watch and Ward Society as "bad, vile, raw stuff," and Mencken was arrested for selling copies on Boston Common." "In its restrained, but unrelenting attack on religious bigotry, irrationality, and hypocrisy, Up From Methodism retains its transgressive power today. In his mocking humor and plain-spun language, used to evoke a bygone South suffocating in its fear of pleasure and damnation, Asbury reveals his debt to another son of Missouri, Mark Twain."--Jacket.

An alphabet book in rhyme of the many sights to be seen in a city.