Tag: Reading the Gilded Age

The Murder of the Century by Paul Collins

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What better way to start 2017 than with a book blog about an entertaining piece of true crime that details a sensational murder that took place in New York in the summer of 1897, the same season and year that The Angel of Darkness was set—and indeed, that even inspired one of the fictional murders described in the novel. Described as “riveting” by The New York Times, this has been one of the most atmospheric pieces of true crime set in late 19th century New York that I have read to date. Provided one reads this work with both the strengths and weaknesses of this genre in mind (see below), I highly recommend this to readers of the Alienist books.

What’s it about?

A group of boys cooling off on a scorching summer afternoon in 1897 find a large parcel wrapped in oilcloth floating in the East River. Thinking they’ve made a fortunate find—it might be farm goods from Brooklyn—they eagerly unwrap the package, only to make a gruesome discovery: a headless human torso, arms still attached. The following day, a father taking his sons blueberry picking in the woods near Harlem also discovers a parcel wrapped in oilcloth. The contents of this one? The lower quadrant of a man, cut off at the thighs and waist. Meanwhile, a Long Island farmer’s ducks become sick after swimming in water turned red with blood.

The police investigating the find at the East River pier are convinced the perpetrators are medical students and make no further enquiries, even falsifying the patrolman’s report. It takes an exiled detective—one of Byrnes’ old men—to identify the grisly finds as a homicide case. However, as he starts to investigate the first few leads, he discovers that he is not the first to have made enquiries: enterprising reporters from the battling sensational newspapers of the Telegram, Herald, and World got there before him. The Murder of the Century documents the race to solve the crime and the sensational publicity circus surrounding the eventual trial, highlighting how the tabloid wars of the Gilded Age forever changed the face of newspaper journalism.

My thoughts

For years I’ve been looking for a piece of crime fiction as entertaining and evocative of late 19th century New York as the Alienist novels. The search has, by and large, been in vain. Although many attempts have been made, I have always felt that the Alienist books have been flagships in this genre that no others have quite lived up to. Given that The Murder of the Century is a work of nonfiction that I picked up simply to learn more about a real murder mentioned briefly in The Angel of Darkness, I little thought that I would find a contender here. You can therefore imagine my surprise when I started reading and found myself experiencing a similar feeling to what I’d felt back when I first picked up The Alienist.

Now, before I continue: a word of warning. The Murder of the Century belongs to a genre known as creative (or narrative) nonfiction. For anyone unfamiliar with this genre, it is nonfiction written in the style of fiction. The writing is compelling and dialogue is often included as full conversations. Even though works of this genre aim to create a factually accurate narrative, I acknowledge that this form of nonfiction has more pitfalls than any other. After all, if one is writing scenes from history as though they belong in a novel, does that not blur the line between fiction and nonfiction? However, provided that the research is thorough and the writer is careful—and that is certainly the case here where every source has been meticulously referenced—certain subjects do lend themselves to this genre. In this case, author Paul Collins notes:

The tremendous press coverage of this affair, with sometimes more than a dozen newspapers fielding reporters at once—not to mention the later memoirs of its participants—allowed me to draw on many eyewitness sources. All of the dialogue in quotation marks comes directly from conversations recorded in their accounts, and while I have freely edited out verbiage, not a word has been added.

Of course, this very strength potentially raises another issue. Specifically, given that this was the era of “yellow journalism”—and indeed, one of the purposes of this book is to highlight just how popular and competitive this new sensationalist reporting had become, often at the expense of facts—one may wonder just how accurate a work of narrative nonfiction primarily based off such coverage is likely to be. However, Paul Collins does his best to make sure readers are aware of the limitations of these sources, and has supplemented them with “court records and memoirs written by journalists and detectives from the case” as additional primary sources. My own feeling is that provided you approach a work like The Murder of the Century for what it is intended to be while keeping its strengths and limitations in mind, it can still be a thoroughly enjoyable way to gain more knowledge about a subject and time period that you might not otherwise obtain. I think of it in much the same way as TV and movie depictions of historical subject matter, such as HBO’s lauded John Adams adaptation from 2008. While the best of these adaptations attempt to portray their historical subject as accurately as possible, they are nonetheless a visual form of creative nonfiction.

In my own case, I feel that The Murder of the Century’s strength lies with its extremely atmospheric descriptions of New York in 1897. I suspect this is why it evoked the same sort of feeling I had originally experienced when reading The Alienist or The Angel of Darkness. We are there with the boys on the pier when they make their original gruesome discovery. A portrait of the grisly morgue at Bellevue is drawn for us as effectively as if we had been standing beside the slab on which the torso had been placed. And we spend a considerable period of time inside John Schuyler Moore’s world of journalism at the turn of the century. It is in this way that the book reads like the Alienist books, and is the primary reason that I recommend it to readers like myself who have tried, but failed, to find similarly atmospheric books set in New York in the late 19th century.

The other attraction for Alienist readers is the case The Murder of the Century focuses on. In Chapter 4 of The Angel of Darkness, Stevie and Cyrus collect the Isaacson brothers from a crime scene at Cunard pier. A group of boys who have been swimming to cool off found (you guessed it) a torso wrapped in oilcloth floating in the Hudson. While the case the Isaacsons are investigating is fictitious (it took place six days earlier, was found in the Hudson River rather than the East River, and the arms were removed from this torso), it was clearly inspired by the real case detailed in The Murder of the Century. In addition, one of the suspects in The Murder of the Century will likely be of interest to anyone who enjoyed The Angel of Darkness, as will the sensational trial described in the second half of the book; but to say more would give too much away.

So, if you are in the mood for a read that will take you back to the New York City described in the Alienist books, would like to learn more about John Schuyler Moore’s world of journalism in the late 19th century, or are at all curious to learn more about the real crime that inspired The Angel of Darkness’ fictitious torso case, The Murder of the Century might just be the book you’re looking for.

Maggie, A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane

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We return to the 17th Street book blogs this month by moving far away from the world of Fifth Avenue mansions and upper class society for a journey into the slums of old New York. Although Caleb Carr has not, to my knowledge, referenced the work of late nineteenth century journalist and novelist Stephen Crane as an influence for the Alienist books, readers of Crane’s atmospheric New York novellas will instantly recognise the same city that was so vividly portrayed in The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness. Given that I have utilised the 2001 Modern Library Classics edition of Crane’s New York writings for this blog, which contains the definitive versions of his novellas Maggie, A Girl of the Streets (1893) and George’s Mother (1896), along with a comprehensive selection of his other Bowery tales, we will be considering both of Crane’s New York novellas together in the following post, rather than just focusing on Maggie, the most famous of the pair.

What’s it about?

Maggie, A Girl of the Streets opens with a scene that would not be out of place if glimpsed in one of the Alienist books. Jimmie, “the little champion of Rum Alley,” is embroiled in a fight with a gang of street urchins from nearby Devil’s Row. Battered and bruised, with blood “bubbling over his chin and down upon his ragged shirt,” the fight only comes to a halt when Jimmie’s father arrives on the scene, obtaining his son’s obedience through violence of his own. As this opening scene suggests, life in the family home is no less frightening than life on the streets for Jimmie, his quiet older sister, Maggie, and his confused and neglected baby brother, Tommie. With a drunken father and an equally drunken, vicious mother who can match her husband blow for blow, Maggie, A Girl of the Streets chronicles the stories of Jimmie and Maggie as they grow up to find their own places in the poverty-stricken world that surrounds them, with one child embracing their fate while the other tries in vain to search for a way out.

In George’s Mother, the sequel to Maggie, A Girl of the Streets, we return once more to the tenement building of Jimmie’s family. Unlike Maggie, however, George’s Mother explores the inner struggles of George Kelcey, the hard-working son of a loving, patient, and temperance supporting mother who has only one fear for her sole surviving child: that he will succumb to the vice that lurks on every street corner in their neighbourhood, and turn to drink. Through these contrasting family portraits, Crane vividly demonstrates the powerful hold that alcohol maintained in the lives of the poor in late nineteenth century New York, and doesn’t shy away from chronicling its effects on the lives of children and adults alike, both inside and outside the family home.

My thoughts

My first impression upon reading the opening lines of Maggie, A Girl of the Streets, along with George’s Mother following it, was that I had once more been transported back into the world that John Moore and Stevie Taggert so vividly describe in The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness. Once again, the reader is there, looking down on the dusty streets from surrounding tenement buildings as we hear the howls arising from a gang of children hurling stones at a small boy who is standing atop a heap of gravel in a vain attempt to defend the honour of Rum Alley. Similarly, in George’s Mother we find ourselves “in the swirling rain that came at dusk” on a broad avenue glistening “with that deep bluish tint which is so widely condemned when it is put into pictures,” through which we witness,

George’s Mother, Chapter I

… the endless processions of people, mighty hosts, with umbrellas waving, banner-like, over them. Horse-cars, aglitter with new paint, rumbled in steady array between the pillars that supported the elevated railroad. The whole street resounded with the tinkle of bells, the roar of iron-shod wheels on the cobbles, the ceaseless trample of the hundreds of feet. Above all, too, could be heard the loud screams of the tiny newsboys, who scurried in all directions. Upon the corners, standing in from the dripping eaves, were many loungers, descended from the world that used to prostrate itself before pageantry.

Although Crane’s masterful portraits of the streets he knew so well are reason enough for any Alienist reader to pick up these stories, it is his examination of the role that alcohol played in the lives of the poor, and its contribution to other forms of vice ranging from violence to prostitution, that make these stories so compelling.

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The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katharine Green

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Changing pace from the last few 17th Street book blogs, I have decided to revisit The Alienist’s roots in nineteenth century sensation and detective fiction for February’s book blog. As we discovered in last year’s special three-part series overviewing The Alienist’s themes, one of Caleb Carr’s inspirations while writing the novel was the work of sensation novelist Wilkie Collins, with the Detective Sergeants Marcus and Lucius Isaacson even being described as having been inspired to become detectives after reading Collins’ work as boys. Although not mentioned in the Alienist novels, another author the Isaacson brothers might have enjoyed reading alongside Wilkie Collins was a New York local, Anna Katharine Green, whose first full length detective novel, The Leavenworth Case, quickly became a best-seller when it was published in 1878.

What’s it about?

Set in 1876, The Leavenworth Case opens with narrator, Mr. Everett Raymond of Veeley, Carr & Raymond, attorneys and counsellors at law, being the only partner present in his firm’s office on the morning that one of their most notable clients, Mr. Horatio Leavenworth, was found murdered in his Fifth Avenue mansion. Upon being summoned to the Leavenworth residence to provide legal assistance to the deceased’s nieces during the coroner’s inquest, Mr. Raymond finds himself embroiled in an atmospheric “locked room mystery,” with a house full of suspects, the key to the crime scene missing, stolen papers, a missing lady’s maid, unreliable witnesses, and a beautiful heiress with a mysterious secret. Add the “tireless, rheumatic, and sardonic” Mr. Ebenezer Gryce, the brilliant yet eccentric police detective who plays Sherlock to Mr. Raymond’s Watson, and you have a gripping murder mystery that takes you from streets and mansions of 1870s Manhattan all the way to quiet cottages in the villages of upstate New York.

My thoughts

While reading The Leavenworth Case I found it easy to imagine the Isaacson brothers poring over the novel as boys, bickering about who the most likely suspects might be along with learning as much as possible about the fascinating field of criminal detection and, in Marcus’ case, the law. Indeed, as Michael Sims notes in his excellent Introduction to the novel’s 2010 Penguin edition, The Leavenworth Case was acclaimed by contemporary critics for its accuracy in portraying the legalities surrounding criminal investigation, and was even assigned to law students at Yale shortly after its publication to illustrate the dangers associated with circumstantial evidence. The daughter of a Manhattan attorney, Anna Katharine Green’s careful observations of her father throughout his career clearly influenced her work; Michael Sims goes on to note that even after her father insisted that she show the manuscript to a judge before it went to print, the judge was unable to find fault with the text except for the use of a single word (equity) that she had used in “a colloquial rather than a precise legal sense.”

Anna Katharine Green

However, more than just an accurate portrayal of the legalities of criminal investigation in the nineteenth century, Michael Sims notes that The Leavenworth Case is also acclaimed as a genre defining piece of detective fiction. Although the influence of sensation novelists such as Wilkie Collins are readily apparent in the similarities the novel holds to works like The Woman in White (e.g., its inclusion of two young women at the center of the mystery, one of whom the narrator is drawn to for purposes other than the investigation), it is fascinating to see how Anna Katharine Green built upon and established genre conventions that would go on to influence other giants of detective fiction, including such luminaries as Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. Beyond elements such as the inclusion of crime scene diagrams and the interaction between the narrator and detective (prototypical of what we have come to associate with Holmes and Watson), Green is also credited as the first major detective novelist who had over three dozen mystery books to her name at the end of her forty-five year career, while her creation Ebenezer Gryce is credited as the first series detective; Sherlock Holmes would not appear in print for another nine years.

From my own perspective, the greatest draw of The Leavenworth Case has to be—as in all good detective fiction—the detective himself, Ebenezer Gryce. Although he bears little resemblance to the fictional detectives who came before or after him, he is no less brilliant, eccentric, or amusing, as we discover from the very first scene in which he appears.

The Leavenworth Case, Book 1: Chapter 1

Mr. Gryce, the detective, was not the thin, wiry individual with a shrewd eye that seems to plunge into the core of your being and pounce at once upon its hidden secret that you are doubtless expecting to see. Mr. Gryce was a portly, comfortable personage with an eye that never pounced, that did not even rest—on you. If it rested anywhere, it was always on some insignificant object in your vicinity, some vase, inkstand, book or button. These things he would seem to take into his confidence, make the repositories of his conclusions, but you—you might as well be the steeple on Trinity Church, for all the connection you ever appeared to have with him or his thoughts. At present, then, Mr. Gryce was, as I have already suggested, on intimate terms with the door-knob.

Gryce also has a wry and appealing sense of humour, as we see further in the novel.

The Leavenworth Case, Book 2: Chapter 13

“Hannah found?”

“So we have reason to think.”

“When? Where? By Whom?”

Drawing up a chair in a flurry of hope and fear, I sat down by Mr. Gryce’s side.

“She is not in the cupboard,” that personage exclaimed, observing without doubt how my eyes went traveling about the room in my anxiety and impatience.

However, in the interests of an honest review, the novel is not without its flaws. Despite kicking off at a rollicking pace, I found the introduction of Mr. Leavenworth’s nieces midway through Book 1 (the novel is divided into four “Books”) to be, at first, off-putting; to say that their introduction also initiates a series of melodramatic exclamations, accusations, and weeping would be, well, something of an understatement. Even so, my advice would be to persist, at least until you’re a few chapters into Book 2 when the melodrama diminishes and the Sherlock and Watson interaction between Gryce and Raymond increases. If you do manage to persist, by the time you reach the end of Book 2 and are well into Book 3, you should find yourself thoroughly hooked, and will begin to understand why Arthur Conan Doyle took the trouble to request a meeting with Green when he made his 1890s tour of the United States, and why Wilkie Collins wrote of Green:

Her powers of invention are so remarkable—she has so much imagination and so much belief (a most important qualification for our art) in which she says… Dozens of times reading the story I have stopped to admire the fertility of invention, the delicate treatment of incident—and the fine perception of event on the personages of the story.

So, if you like detective fiction, sensation novels, or just a good mystery set in New York, it is certainly worth giving The Leavenworth Case a go. Perhaps you too will enjoy it as much as I suspect the Isaacson brothers would have.

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

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To follow up 17th Street’s special book blog series on The Alienist, I have decided to present one of my favourite classics by another renowned New York author, Edith Wharton, as the first 17th Street book blog for 2015 given that it also explores several of The Alienist’s central themes. Even though I have never seen any interviews in which Caleb Carr has commented on Edith Wharton’s work, Edith is unquestionably one of the masters of social commentary and psychological insight when it comes to the world of gilded age New York, and The House of Mirth is an excellent starting point for any readers of the Alienist books who might be unfamiliar with her work, with its themes ranging from the role of women in society to psychological determinism.

What’s it about?

It is the turn of the twentieth century, and the beautiful Miss Lily Bart, one of the darlings of New York society, is 29, unmarried, and in need of a husband in order to keep living the luxurious life to which she became accustomed prior to her family’s financial ruin several years earlier. Through Lily’s story, as well as those of the characters who surround her, we witness first-hand the moral, social, fiscal, and psychological implications of one woman’s desire for personal freedom and independence in a cut-throat world where debts—both financial and societal—must be paid, or the consequences suffered.

My thoughts

In his Introduction to Edith Wharton’s autobiography, A Backward Glance, Louis Achincloss wrote:

It was said of Edith Wharton that she and Theodore Roosevelt were self-made men, and the saying pleased her. She and the president, contemporaries and good friends, had grown up together and escaped from the kind of society that was the hardest of all to escape from: the secure, complacent haute bourgeoisie of the late nineteenth century that found politics too dirty for gentlemen and letters too inky for ladies.

Not surprisingly, the concept of personal freedom and what it meant for women and men in the late nineteenth century runs deep in Edith’s 1905 novel, and is evident as early as The House of Mirth’s opening scene. In this scene, Lily Bart is passing time in her friend Lawrence Selden’s bachelor flat while she awaits a train to take her upstate for the summer. While the pair take tea together in Selden’s flat, we are presented with the contrast of an intelligent young woman who feels that she must marry in order maintain her position in society with that of a similarly aged young man who is more than capable of maintaining his position whilst also retaining his independence.

Book 1, Chapter 1:

“But do you mind [having to work] enough—to marry to get out of it?”

Selden broke into a laugh. “God forbid!” he declared.

She rose with a sigh, tossing her cigarette into the grate.

“Ah, there’s the difference—a girl must [marry], a man may if he chooses.” She surveyed him critically. “Your coat’s a little shabby—but who cares? It doesn’t keep people from asking you to dine. If I were shabby no one would have me: a woman is asked out as much for her clothes as for herself. The clothes are the background, the frame, if you like: they don’t make success, but they are a part of it. Who wants a dingy woman? We are expected to be pretty and well-dressed till we drop—and if we can’t keep it up alone; we have to go into partnership.”

Of course, as we have recently seen in The Alienist book blog series, as well as in the Education of Sara Howard history blog series, there was also a growing movement among middle and upper class women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to push back against the prevailing view that the only respectable occupation for women in society was as a doting wife and mother in the home. We see such women represented in the Alienist books by Sara Howard, and Edith Wharton did not fail to represent these women in The House of Mirth either given her inclusion in the novel of Selden’s cousin, Gertrude Farish. However, in typical Wharton style, Edith pulled no punches in describing how independent women like Gerty were viewed in society, even by those women who might have envied their level of personal freedom.

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