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175.00 USD
Solid first edition leather-bound copy of Matthew Hale Smith's Sunshine and Shadow in New York City is filled with sensational stories of the city circa 1869. The book has plate engraved prints depicting the sights and people of the fledging metropolitan city.
The sunshine and the shadow refers to the economic division in the city between the super rich and those struggling to make a living by any means they can. As the clique saying goes, the more things change the more they remain the same.
The book has a diverse range of chapter subjects including, High Life in New York, Wall Street, A Night on the Battery, Stock and Oil Preachers, John Jacob Astor, Black-Mailing As An Art, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Police Force of New York, The Five Points, The Bowery, Sailors in New York, Fulton Street Prayer-Meeting, Trinity Church Corporation, Conspiracy Against President Lincoln, Practical Jokes, Central Park, Life Among The Lowly, Social Evil in New York, Gambling Houses of the First Class, Low Class Gambling Houses, Telegraph Headquarters, Street Walkers, Gift Swindlers and Lottery Enterprises, and more.
This book was published in 1869 and shows wear and the passage of time. It is a big and heavy book. The leather cover is worn around the edges and along the spine and has some dings, scratches and soiling. The cover is cracking along the hinges but is holding. The book should be handled carefully to prevent the cover from breaking from the book. The pages are tanned with age and there is some spotting and water stains at the edges of some pages. There are some small tears on the pages from page 447 - 451 that does not effect the readability of the text. Otherwise, the pages are clean. The binding is tight.
Sunshine and Shadow in New York
by Matthew Hale Smith
J.B. Burr and Company, Hartford, 1869
718 Pages, plus advertising pages at back
9" x 6"
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