The Murder of Jim Fisk for the Love of Josie Mansfield

Zusatztext Praise for H. W. Brands H. W. Brands is a master at finding the essence of an important American life! telling its story grippingly and showing us why it is important to our own generation. Michael Beschloss Brands will change the way you see history. The Austin American-Statesman A wonderfully skilled narrative historian. Los Angeles Times Brands is masterly. The Economist Few historians can tell a tale better. The Dallas Morning News Informationen zum Autor H. W. BRANDS holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. A New York Times bestselling author, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography for The First American and Traitor to His Class . Visit the author's website at www.hwbrands.com. Klappentext In the initial volume of a new series--American Portraits! focusing on forgotten chapters of American history--Brands brings to life a scandal from Gilded Age New York: the murder of Jim Diamond Jim Fisk. 1 A gray blanket cloaks the trees of Montparnasse on a late autumn morning. Smoke from the coal fires that heat the homes and shops along the narrow streets swirls upward to join the fog that congeals intermittently into drizzle. This part of Paris hides the signs of the Great Depression better than the blighted industrial districts, but the tattered storefronts, the shabby dress of men with nowhere to go, and the age of the few cars that ply the streets betray a community struggling to keep its soul together. An old, oddly configured vehicle lumbers slowly along the cobbles. The dispirited pedestrians pay it no mind. Nor do they heed the two women and one man who walk behind it. The women appear to be locals; the shawls around their shoulders and the scarves on their heads could have been taken from the woman selling apples on one of the corners they pass or from the grandmother dividing a thin baguette among her four little ones. (Or could she be their mother? Hard times play evil tricks on youth and beauty.) The man must be a foreigner. He dresses like an En?glishman, one whom the Depression seems to have spared. His heavy wool coat and felt hat shield him from the damp; the coat's collar and the hat's brim hide his face from those around him. He might be an American; he walks more assertively than the average En?glishman. He probably walked still more assertively when he was younger, although how many years have passed since that sprightly era is impossible to say. The two women speak quietly to each other. Neither addresses the man, nor he them. The vehicle-whether it is a car or a truck is as much a puzzle as most else about this small procession-slows almost to a stop, then turns onto the leaf-strewn lane of the cemetery that these days forms a principal raison d'être of the neighborhood. It moves tentatively along the track, picking its way among the gravestones and mausoleums, beneath the connecting branches of trees left over from when the farm on this site began accepting plantings that didn't sprout, not in this existence. The driver finally locates what he has been looking for, and he stops beside a fresh pile of dirt that is gradually turning dark as the drizzle soaks in. Two men shrouded in long coats suddenly but silently appear, as if from the earth itself. They stand at the rear of the vehicle as the driver lowers the gate. They grasp handles on the sides of the bare wooden box the vehicle contains, and with a nonchalance just shy of disrespect they hoist it out and set it on the ground between the pile of dirt and the hole from which the dirt has come. They step aside, wordlessly letting the three mourners know that this is their last chance to commune with the deceased. One of the women produces, from a cloth bag, a small cluster of chrys...

Praise for H. W. Brands

“H. W. Brands is a master at finding the essence of an important American life, telling its story grippingly and showing us why it is important to our own generation.” —Michael Beschloss
 
“Brands will change the way you see history.” —The Austin American-Statesman
 
“A wonderfully skilled narrative historian.” —Los Angeles Times
 
“Brands is masterly.” —The Economist
 
“Few historians can tell a tale better.” —The Dallas Morning News

Autorentext
H. W. BRANDS holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. A New York Times bestselling author, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography for The First American and Traitor to His Class.


Visit the author's website at www.hwbrands.com.

Klappentext
In the initial volume of a new series--American Portraits, focusing on forgotten chapters of American history--Brands brings to life a scandal from Gilded Age New York: the murder of Jim Diamond Jim Fisk.


Zusammenfassung
The two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War traces the extraordinary downfall of financier Jubilee Jim, bringing to life New York’s Gilded Age and some of its legendary players, including Boss William Tweed, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the railroad tycoon Jay Gould.

Even before he was shot dead on the stairway of the tony Grand Central Hotel in 1872, financier James “Jubilee Jim” Fisk, Jr., was a notorious New York City figure. From his audacious attempt to corner the gold market in 1869 to his battle for control of the geographically crucial Erie Railroad, Fisk was a flamboyant exemplar of a new financial era marked by volatile fortunes and unprecedented greed and corruption. But it was his scandalously open affair with a showgirl named Josie Mansfield that ultimately led to his demise.

Leseprobe
1

A gray blanket cloaks the trees of Montparnasse on a late autumn morning. Smoke from the coal fires that heat the homes and shops along the narrow streets swirls upward to join the fog that congeals intermittently into drizzle. This part of Paris hides the signs of the Great Depression better than the blighted industrial districts, but the tattered storefronts, the shabby dress of men with nowhere to go, and the age of the few cars that ply the streets betray a community struggling to keep its soul together.

An old, oddly configured vehicle lumbers slowly along the cobbles. The dispirited pedestrians pay it no mind. Nor do they heed the two women and one man who walk behind it. The women appear to be locals; the shawls around their shoulders and the scarves on their heads could have been taken from the woman selling apples on one of the corners they pass or from the grandmother dividing a thin baguette among her four little ones. (Or could she be their mother? Hard times play evil tricks on youth and beauty.)

The man must be a foreigner. He dresses like an En?glishman, one whom the Depression seems to have spared. His heavy wool coat and felt hat shield him from the damp; the coat's collar and the hat's brim hide his face from those around him. He might be an American; he walks more assertively than the average En?glishman. He probably walked still more assertively when he was younger, although how many years have passed since that sprightly era is impossible to say.

The two women speak quietly to each other. Neither addresses the man, nor he them. The vehicle-whether it is a car or a truck is as much a puzzle as most else about this small procession-slows almost to a stop, then turns onto the leaf-strewn lane of the cemetery that these days forms a principal raison d'être of the neighborhood. It moves tentatively along the track, picking its way among the gravestones and mausole…

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