The Powell Papers: A Confidence Man Amok Among the Anglo-American Literati

by Hershel Parker

In 1849--months before the term "confidence man" was coined to identify a New York crook--Thomas Powell (1809-1887), a spherical, monocled, English poetaster, dramatist, journalist, embezzler, and forger, landed in Manhattan. Powell in London had capped a career of grand theft and literary peccadilloes by feigning a suicide attempt and having himself committed to a madhouse, after which he fled England. He had been an intimate of William Wordsworth,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0810127032
• ISBN13: 9780810127036
• Release Date: June 2011
• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.1"