McSorley's Wonderful Saloon
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New Yorker essayist Mitchell likes to start with an unimportant hero, but collects all the facts, arranges them to give the desired effects, and usually ends by describing the customs of a community. The subject of one portrait "is a brassy little man who has made a living for the last forty years by giving an annual ball for the benefit of himself." Mitchell doesn't present him as anything more than a barroom scrounger; but in telling his story, he also gives a picture of New York sporting life. "King of the Gypsies" sets out to describe the spokesman of 38 gypsy families, but it soon becomes a Gibbon's decline and fall of the American gypsies; and it ends with an apocalyptic vision that is not only comic but also more imaginative than recent novels. Reading some of his portraits a second time, you catch an emotion beneath them that resembles Dickens'.—From Malcolm Cowley, The New Republic.
Liked McSorley's Wonderful Saloon? Here’s where I’d start.
These suit anyone who liked McSorley's Wonderful Saloon. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.
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The Long-Winded Lady: Notes from The New Yorker Shares essays, nonfiction, New York -
Just Enough Liebling: Classic Work by the Legendary New Yorker Writer Shares essays, nonfiction, New York -
Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York Shares nonfiction, essays, New York -
Gone to New York: Adventures in the City Shares essays, New York, nonfiction
“People who read McSorley's Wonderful Saloon tend to reach for these next.”
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Tales of Two Cities: The Best and Worst of Times In Today's New York
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My First New York: Early Adventures in the Big City (As Remembered by Actors, Artists, Athletes, Chefs, Comedians, Filmmakers, Mayors, Models, Moguls, Porn Stars, Rockers, Writers, and Others
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Never Can Say Goodbye: Writers on Their Unshakable Love for New York
