Background
Herbert Asbury was born on September 1, 1891 in Farmington, Missouri, United States, the son of Samuel Lester Asbury, surveyor of St. Francois County and city clerk of Farmington, and of Ellen N. Prichard.
(This classic history of crime tells how Chicago's underwo...)
This classic history of crime tells how Chicago's underworld earned and kept its reputation.
https://www.amazon.com/Gem-Prairie-Informal-History-Underworld/dp/0875805345?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0875805345
(Herbert Asbury, author of The Gangs of New York and The G...)
Herbert Asbury, author of The Gangs of New York and The Gangs of Chicago, turns his attention to chronicle the seedy underworld of San Francisco, from its gold-rush glories to its subterranean opium dens. Houses of ill-repute play host to shanghaied sailors, and the Chinese tong wars rage around the city. San Francisco's historic past is here brought to life in all its scintillating and infamous glory.
https://www.amazon.com/Gangs-San-Francisco-Herbert-Asbury/dp/0099455129?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0099455129
( The history of the Barbary Coast properly begins with t...)
The history of the Barbary Coast properly begins with the gold rush to California in 1849. If the precious yellow metal hadn't been discovered ... the development of San Francisco's underworld in all likelihood would have been indistinguishable from that of any other large American city. Instead, owing almost entirely to the influx of gold-seekers and the horde of gamblers, thieves, harlots, politicians, and other felonious parasites who battened upon them, there arose a unique criminal district that for almost seventy years was the scene of more viciousness and depravity, but which at the same time possessed more glamour, than any other area of vice and iniquity on the American continent. The Barbary Coast is Herbert Asbury's classic chronicle of the birth of San Francisco—a violent explosion from which the infant city emerged full-grown and raging wild. From all over the world practitioners of every vice stampeded for the blood and money of the gold fields. Gambling dens ran all day including Sundays. From noon to noon houses of prostitution offered girls of every age and race. (In the 1850s, San Francisco was home to only one woman for every thirty men. It was not until 1910 that the sexes achieved anything close to parity in their populations.) This is the story of the banditry, opium bouts, tong wars, and corruption, from the eureka at Sutter's Mill until the last bagnio closed its doors seventy years later.
https://www.amazon.com/Barbary-Coast-Informal-Francisco-Underworld/dp/1560254084?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1560254084
( The basis of Martin Scorcese's acclaimed 2003 film, The...)
The basis of Martin Scorcese's acclaimed 2003 film, The Gangs of New York is a dramatic and entertaining glimpse at a city's dark past. Focusing on the saloon halls, gambling dens, and winding alleys of the Bowery and the notorious Five Points district, The Gangs of New York dramatically evokes the destitution and shocking violence of a turbulent era, when colorfully named criminals like Dandy John Dolan, Bill the Butcher, and Hell-Cat Maggie lurked in the shadows, and infamous gangs like the Plug Uglies, the Dead Rabbits, and the Bowery Boys ruled the streets. A rogues' gallery of prostitutes, pimps, poisoners, pickpockets, murderers, and thieves, Herbert Asbury's whirlwind tour through the low life of nineteenth-century New York has become an indispensible classic of urban history.
https://www.amazon.com/Gangs-New-York-Informal-Underworld/dp/0307388980?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0307388980
( Home to the notorious "Blue Book," which listed the nam...)
Home to the notorious "Blue Book," which listed the names and addresses of every prostitute living in the city, New Orleans's infamous red-light district gained a reputation as one of the most raucous in the world. But the New Orleans underworld consisted of much more than the local bordellos. It was also well known as the early gambling capital of the United States, and sported one of the most violent records of street crime in the country. In The French Quarter, Herbert Asbury, author of The Gangs of New York, chronicles this rather immense underbelly of "The Big Easy." From the murderous exploits of Mary Jane "Bricktop" Jackson and Bridget Fury, two prostitutes who became famous after murdering a number of their associates, to the faux-revolutionary "filibusters" who, backed by hundreds of thousands of dollars of public support—though without official governmental approval—undertook military missions to take over the bordering Spanish regions in Texas, the French Quarter had it all. Once again, Asbury takes the reader on an intriguing, photograph-filled journey through a unique version of the American underworld.
https://www.amazon.com/French-Quarter-Informal-History-Underworld/dp/1560254947?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1560254947
( Originally published in 1938, Sucker’s Progress is a co...)
Originally published in 1938, Sucker’s Progress is a complete look at old-time gamesmanship in America. From Midwestern riverboats to East Coast racetracks, Asbury explores the legal, and illegal, history of gambling in pre–World War I America. With a keen eye and acerbic voice, Asbury defines the world of gambling as one of “sharpers” and “suckers”: those who excel at the games by cheating, and their victims. From notorious gambling havens like Chicago and New Orleans to lesser-known outposts in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Cincinnati, Ohio, Asbury examines the gambling houses, big and small, which peppered the American landscape. Also included are photographs and details of the lives of some of America’s most famous gamblers, including Mike McDonald, John Morrissey, and Richard Canfield, as well as their infamous counterparts like “Canada Bill” and “Charley Black Eyes,” who made their names as grifters and con men. Asbury also details the games these men played, describing the rules and origins of a number of dice and card games. From one-dollar lottery tickets to thousand-dollar poker antes, America’s love of gambling thrives today, but it was during Asbury’s era that gambling was established as an American passion.
https://www.amazon.com/Suckers-Progress-Informal-History-Gambling/dp/1560254955?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1560254955
(John Pelan calls this novel of "demon-possessed idols, gi...)
John Pelan calls this novel of "demon-possessed idols, giant toads, and bloody ropes appearing from nowhere" a minor masterpiece. In his introduction he explains how Asbury, who mainly wrote true-crime books like THE GANGS OF NEW YOUR, came to write about supernatural things.
https://www.amazon.com/Devil-Pei-Ling-Herbert-Asbury/dp/1605437271?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1605437271
(Home to the notorious "Blue Book", which listed the names...)
Home to the notorious "Blue Book", which listed the names and addresses of every prostitute living in the city, New Orleans' infamous red-light district gained a reputation as one of the most raucous in the world. But the New Orleans underworld consisted of much more than the local bordellos. It was also well known as the early gambling capital of the United States, and sported one of the most violent records of street crime in the country. In "The Gangs of New Orleans", Herbert Asbury, author of "The Gangs of New York", chronicles the immense underbelly of 'The Big Easy'. From the murderous exploits of Mary Jane 'Bricktop' Jackson and Bridget Fury, two prostitutes who became famous after murdering a number of their associates, to the faux-revolutionary 'filibusters' who, backed by hundreds of thousands of dollars of public support - though without official governmental approval - undertook military missions to take over the bordering Spanish regions in Texas, the French Quarter had it all. Once again, Asbury takes the reader on an intriguing journey through a unique history of the American underworld.
https://www.amazon.com/Gangs-New-Orleans-Informal-Underworld/dp/0099455080?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0099455080
( The author of the New York Times best-seller The Gangs ...)
The author of the New York Times best-seller The Gangs of New York returns with a second volume of tales from Gotham's underworld. In this wonderfully colorful and surprising history, Herbert Asbury expands his purview beyond the Five Corners to the entire city of New York. From Lord Cornbury, a loonily corrupt, cross-dressing British governor of colonial days, to the Broadway pickpocket who built herself a mansion in Hoboken, where she set herself up as European royalty, to prohibitionist Carry Nation's first visit to a scornful city of saloons (and her memorable confrontation with the drunken John L. Sullivan), All Around the Town brings to vivid life a memorable range of characters, grifters, murderers, and madmen. Rediscovering a fascinating array of lost corners in the history of the city, Asbury shows that today's tabloid headlines have nothing on the daily goings-on 150 years ago. From "The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island" to "The Wickedest Man in New York" to "The Flour Riot of 1837," these twenty-three lively and accessible accounts make for top-notch, eccentric popular history as told by a master.
https://www.amazon.com/All-Around-Town-Adrenaline-Classics/dp/1560255218?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1560255218
Herbert Asbury was born on September 1, 1891 in Farmington, Missouri, United States, the son of Samuel Lester Asbury, surveyor of St. Francois County and city clerk of Farmington, and of Ellen N. Prichard.
Asbury was educated at Elmwood Seminary, Baptist College, and Carleton College, all in Farmington.
He worked on the Farmington Times during a summer and after graduation took a full-time job with the paper. He did every type of work: printing, reporting, editing. He was fired, however, when he extended a vacation.
Asbury then worked briefly in a lumberyard but, as he later explained in his characteristic style: "I concluded that the lumber business held out no glowing promise for a young man who wished to retain his health and have leisure for a reasonable amount of traffic with Satan. "
Asbury returned to journalism by getting a job on the Quincy, Ill. , Journal (1910-1912). He then moved to the Peoria Journal (1912-1913) and on to William Randolph Hearst's Atlanta Georgian (1913-1915). While working as a reporter for the Georgian, Asbury played an important part in getting a child labor law through the Georgia legislature in 1914.
He left Atlanta for the New York Press in 1915. In 1916 he switched to the New York Tribune and later that year to the New York Sun. Asbury enlisted in the army on Dec. 8, 1917. He was made a second lieutenant, infantry, in July 1918. He was wounded and gassed in France and, in January 1919, honorably discharged.
He returned to the New York Sun, but left in 1920 to work for the New York Herald, and, after 1924 for the new Herald Tribune. One of the fastest rewrite men, he was considered an excellent journalist by others in the field. Asbury became known nationally when H. L. Mencken published Asbury's article, "Hatrack, " in the April 1926 issue of the American Mercury. The article was about a prostitute in Asbury's hometown who worked at a cemetery.
In Boston, the Watch and Ward Society succeeded in getting the issue banned. Mencken, who wanted a test case, was arrested on the Boston Common for selling allegedly obscene material. The post office barred the issue from the mails.
In 1926 Asbury published his autobiographical Up from Methodism, which covers the events up to 1910. The next year his biography of Bishop Francis Asbury, A Methodist Saint, appeared.
He left the newspaper the same year to devote full time to writing. He published The Gangs of New York (1928), The Life of Carry Nation (1929), and The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld (1933). Asbury also wrote histories of the underworlds of New Orleans and Chicago. He was skeptical of any attempt to control morality by law, and very skeptical of the reformers themselves. Sucker's Progress: An Informal History of Gambling in America from the Colonies to Canfield was published in 1938.
Asbury had a wide readership. His articles appeared in the New Yorker, Cosmopolitan, and other magazines. He also did screenwriting. During World War II he wrote articles about military equipment and strategy for Popular Science. His writings provoked comment and controversy, both for their subject matter--histories of vice, crime, and self-indulgence--and for his uninvolved, nonjudgmental attitude toward what he portrayed.
From 1942 to 1948 Asbury was an editor at Collier's Weekly.
His last book was The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition (1950). The July 1951 issue of the American Historical Review called it a fascinating and significant study. Asbury challenged many accepted myths, and his newspaperman's experience helped him analyze the propaganda of both sides just as it had in his earlier books on crime and corruption. He continued writing until his death in New York City.
( Home to the notorious "Blue Book," which listed the nam...)
(Home to the notorious "Blue Book", which listed the names...)
(Herbert Asbury, author of The Gangs of New York and The G...)
( The basis of Martin Scorcese's acclaimed 2003 film, The...)
( The author of the New York Times best-seller The Gangs ...)
(John Pelan calls this novel of "demon-possessed idols, gi...)
( Originally published in 1938, Sucker’s Progress is a co...)
(This classic history of crime tells how Chicago's underwo...)
( The history of the Barbary Coast properly begins with t...)
Quotes from others about the person
A reviewer in the New Yorker: "Mr. Asbury, who has made all American sinfulness his province, apparently has no feelings about his subject. Coldly, soberly, industriously he records the facts he lacks either moral indignation or that spontaneous admiration for rascality. "
Asbury married Helen Hahn, who also worked at the Herald Tribune, on August 31, 1928. They had no children.
His first marriage had ended in divorce in 1944, and on March 29, 1945, he married Edith S. Evans, a journalist who later worked for the New York Times. This marriage ended in separation.