New York Nocturne: The City After Dark in Literature, Painting, and Photography, 1850-1950

415 Pages·2008·32.63 MB·English

by  William Chapman Sharpe

NEW YORK NOCTURNE
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NEW YORK NOCTURNE
the city after dark in literature,
painting, and photography, 1850–1950
William Chapman Sharpe
Princeton University Press Princeton & Oxford
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Copyright © 2008 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock,
Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
All Rights Reserved
ISBN-13: 978-0-691-13324-9
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Bembo and Radiant
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
press.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
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To
Heather and the boys,
Alexander,
William,
and Patrick
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Only on a canvas of Darkness, such is man’s way of being, could
the many-coloured picture of our Life paint itself and shine.
—Thomas Carlyle, Characteristics
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C O N T E N T S
list of illustrations xi
acknowledgments xvii
Introduction The Dream Site 1
Seeing in a New Light 10
Dark Arts and the Urban Sublime 14
Getting Acquainted with the Night 26
One Story of the Night 32
Chapter One Gaslit Babylon 37
New York Lights Up 39
Walking the Night 42
Terror and Taming 46
Morality and Light 55
The Country and the City 60
Night People, Night Prowling 63
The Devil, the Moralist, and the Voyeur 66
Police Take Note: The Flâneur Flummoxed 70
Gaslit Barbary 73
Lullaby for Babylon 76
Chapter Two The Nocturne: Moonlight, Metamorphosis,
and Modernism 80
Contemplating the Moon 82
The Softer Satellite in Eclipse 86
No More Than I Wish 91
As with a Veil 97
Fireworks in Court 100
Everywhere I Looked I Saw Whistlers 105
Unrecorded Miracles 112
The Photo-Nocturne 118
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