New York by gas-light and other urban sketches / by George G. Foster ; edited and with an introduction by Stuart M. Blumin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Foster, George G., -1856.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Blumin, Stuart M.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

New York (N.Y.)--Description and travel.

New York (N.Y.).

National Book Committee.

New York (N.Y.)--History--1775-1865.

History.

New York (N.Y.)--Social life and customs--19th century.

Manners and customs.

Travel.

New York (State)--New York.

New York (N.Y.)--Descriptions et voyages.

New York (N.Y.)--Histoire--1775-1865.

New York (N.Y.)--Mœurs et coutumes.

Local Subjects:

New York (N.Y.)--Descriptions et voyages.

New York (N.Y.)--Histoire--1775-1865.

New York (N.Y.)--Mœurs et coutumes.

Genre:

History.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

251 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Other Title:

New York by gaslight and other urban sketches.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [1990]

Summary:

First published in 1850, New York by Gos-Light explores the seamy side of the newly emerging metropolis: "the festivities of prostitution, the orgies of pauperism, the haunts of theft and murder, the scenes of drunkenness and beastly debauch, and all the sad realities that go to make up the lower stratum--the underground story--of life in New York!" The author of this lively and fascinating little book, which both attracted and offended large numbers of readers in Victorian America, was George G. Foster, reporter for Horace Greeley's influential New York Tribune, social commentator, poet, and man about town. Foster drew on his daily and nightly rambles through the city's streets and among the characters of the urban demi-monde to produce a sensationalized but extraordinarily revealing portrait of New York at the moment it was emerging as a major metropolis.

Contents:

Introduction: George G. Foster and the Emerging Metropolis 1

New York by Gas-Light: With Here and There a Streak of Sunshine 65

New York by Daylight: Selections from New York in Slices and Fifteen Minutes Around New York 199.

Notes:

Consists of the author's New York by gas-light, and selections from his New York in slices, and Fifteen minutes around New York.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

0520067215

9780520067219

0520067223

9780520067226

OCLC:

21375707

Online:

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description