Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York

The classic social history of corruption and vice in nineteenth-century NYC: "A cacophonous poem of democracy and greed, like the streets of New York themselves" (John Vernon, Los Angeles Times Book Review).

Lucy Sante's Low Life is a portrait of America's greatest city, the riotous and anarchic breeding ground of modernity. This is not the familiar saga of mansions, avenues, and robber barons, but the messy, turbulent, often murderous story of the city's slums; the teeming streets—scene of...