The under-ground story

On Monday Cyrus quoted a bit from the opening paragraph of Foster’s New York by Gas-Light, our text this week in vWNY. Here’s a little more: NEW YORK BY GAS-LIGHT! What a task have we undertaken! To penetrate beneath the thick veil of night and lay bare...

Slumming

Cyrus and I are at work (among other things) on a long review essay, for the journal American Literary History, dealing with a number of books that can loosely be grouped as histories of slumming and nightlife in the city. The titles under review include this one, as...