Review: American Literary Scholarship

Blacklegs, Card Sharps and Confidence Men has received a nice mention in Alan Gribben's chapter on Mark Twain in the 2010 edition of American Literary Scholarship. He writes:

Kindle Editions

The release of Southern Queen might be just around the corner, but Kindle editions of my other two books have just been added on Amazon. Click on the covers above to buy or for a free preview. And stay tuned for more updates soon.

Review: Journal of Illinois History

Blacklegs, Card Sharps and Confidence Men has been reviewed in the Journal of Illinois History. Greg Hall writes:

“To bring to life the cultural world of the Mississippi River Valley of the nineteenth century is no easy task […] Thomas Ruys Smith does this with a compilation of stories that focus on specific elements of that cultural world that in some ways are quite alien to our own. Yet the legacy of the period can still resonate within our historical memory […] Therefore it is a significant contribution to our understanding of American cultural history that Smith provides here, because before the cowboy and the gunslinger, there was the riverboat gambler.”

You can read the whole review here.

Advance Praise for Blacklegs, Card Sharps and Confidence Men

Advance praise for Blacklegs, Card Sharps and Confidence Men: Nineteenth-Century Mississippi River Gambling Stories, published May 2010 by Louisiana State University Press:

“Blacklegs, Card Sharps, and Confidence Men is the most significant collection of riverlore published in decades. Thomas Ruys Smith’s wide-ranging anthology includes selections from high and low culture, demonstrating the evolution of gambling from a widely feared part of the early river trade to a romanticized American cultural icon. This collection is essential to understanding the history of gambling in America and solidifies Smith’s reputation as the leading cultural historian of American river life.”

—Thomas C. Buchanan, author of Black Life on the Mississippi: Slaves, Free Blacks, and the Western Steamboat World

“The Mississippi riverboat gambler ranks alongside the mountain man, frontier scout, patriot militiaman, borderlands outlaw, and cowboy as an archetypal American folk hero. Yet the scholarly literature of the riverboat gambler is sparse compared to that of his folkloric colleagues. Thomas Ruys Smith helps to correct this slight in Blacklegs, Card Sharps, and Confidence Men. Smith has gathered together a splendid collection of both literary and historical writings (and combinations thereof) that tell the exciting story of this nineteenth-century icon. Scholars and laymen alike will enjoy sitting back and reading these engaging tales.”

—Michael Allen, author of Rodeo Cowboys In The North American Imagination

Available now from Amazon.

Blacklegs... in the LSU Press Spring 2010 Catalog

Blacklegs, Card Sharps and Confidence Men (coming May 2010) in the Louisiana State University Press Catalog, Spring 2010 (available here). Click for a bigger version of the image.

Blacklegs, Card Sharps and Confidence Men: A First Glimpse

Coming May 2010. In the meantime, here's the official site on the Louisiana State University Press website. And here are the product pages for Blacklegs... on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. More information as it emerges.

Coming Soon: Blacklegs, Card Sharps & Confidence Man

From Edward Eggleston's The End of the World

Coming soon from Louisiana State University Press, my edited collection: Blacklegs, Card Sharps and Confidence Men: Nineteenth Century Gambling Stories from the Mississippi River. Arriving Spring 2010. More details as they're available.