A Pickpocket's Tale
The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York
14 September 2007
Description
"A true story more incredible than fiction." —Kevin Baker, author of Striver's Row
In George Appo's world, child pickpockets swarmed the crowded streets, addicts drifted in furtive opium dens, and expert swindlers worked the lucrative green-goods game. On a good night Appo made as much as a skilled laborer made in a year. Bad nights left him with more than a dozen scars and over a decade in prisons from the Tombs and Sing Sing to the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where he reunited with another inmate, his father. The child of Irish and Chinese immigrants, Appo grew up in the notorious Five Points and Chinatown neighborhoods. He rose as an exemplar of the "good fellow," a criminal who relied on wile, who followed a code of loyalty even in his world of deception. Here is the underworld of the New York that gave us Edith Wharton, Boss Tweed, Central Park, and the Brooklyn Bridge.
Reviews
"A remarkable tale…What is surprising about the book is how much Gilfoyle cares about this small-time crook. And how much he makes us care." — Ann Fabian, Chicago Tribune
"An instructive and somewhat chilling depiction of life in New York's underside during the 19th century." — Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post
"Appo is captivating. Despite a Dickensian childhood, institutional sadism and bad luck, he remains honest, in his own way, and is rightly transformed into an American hero." — Tara McKelvey, New York Times Book Review
"Terrific…a fine history that makes for a riveting read." — Peter Pavia, New York Post
"A spectacularly detailed look at the evolution of crime (and especially punishment) in post-Civil War America." — Whitney Pastorek, Entertainment Weekly
"For the first time in our history, a distinguished scholar has opened up the previously undiscovered world of the common criminal in the nineteenth century. What an impressive and unforgettable story." — Kenneth T. Jackson, Jacques Barzun Professor of History and Social Science, Columbia University
Also By: Timothy J. Gilfoyle 
City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790-1920
Paperback, 1994
Winner of the Allan Nevins Prize of the Society of American Historians and the New York State Historical Association Manuscript Prize.
