New York Nocturnes Illustrated

CONTENTSNEW YORK NOCTURNESThe IdealIn the CrowdNight in a Down-town StreetAt the Railway StationNocturnes of the Honeysuckle, INocturnes of the Honeysuckle, IIMy GardenPresenceTwilight on Sixth AvenueThe Street LampsIn DarknessIn the Solitude of the CityA Nocturne of ExileA Street VigilA Nocturne of TrystingIn a City RoomA Nocturne of ConsecrationOTHER POEMSAn Evening CommunionLife and ArtBeyond the Tops of TimeDream-FellowsThe Atlantic CableWhen the Clover Blooms AgainAt Tide WaterThe Falling LeavesMarjoryThe Solitary WoodsmanThe Stirrup CupIceThe Hermit"O Thou who bidd'st"Ascription

As early as the 1850s, gaslight tempted New Yorkers out into a burgeoning nightlife filled with shopping, dining, and dancing. Electricity later turned the city at night into an even more stunning spectacle of brilliantly lit streets and glittering skyscrapers. The advent of artificial lighting revolutionized the urban night, creating not only new forms of life and leisure, but also new ways of perceiving the nocturnal experience. New York Nocturne is the first book to examine how the art of the gaslit and electrified city evolved, and how representations of nighttime New York expanded the boundaries of modern painting, literature, and photography. Exploring the myriad images of Manhattan after dark, New York Nocturne shows how writers and artists took on the city's nocturnal blaze and transformed the scintillating landscape into an icon of modernity. The book traces key metaphors of the nighttime city: a seductive Babylon in the mid-1850s, a misty fairyland colonized by an empire of light in the early twentieth century, and a skyscraper-studded land of desire that became a stage for the voyeurism and violence of the 1940s and 1950s. The epilogue suggests how these themes have continued to shape our vision of nighttime New York ever since. Abundantly illustrated, New York Nocturne includes original readings of works by Whitman, Poe, Whistler, Riis, Stieglitz, Abbott, O'Keeffe, Stella, Hopper, Weegee, Ellison, Jacquette, and many others. Collectively, they tell a fascinating story about the relationship between night, art, and modern urban life.

A beautifully illustrated look at the vogue for night landscapes amid the social, political, and technological changes of modern America The turn of the 20th century witnessed a surge in the creation and popularity of nocturnes and night landscapes in American art. In this original and thought-provoking book, Hélène Valance investigates why artists and viewers of the era were so captivated by the night. Nocturne examines works by artists such as James McNeill Whistler, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, Frederic Remington, Edward Steichen, and Henry Ossawa Tanner through the lens of the scientific developments and social issues that dominated the period. Valance argues that the success of the genre is connected to the resonance between the night and the many forces that affected the era, including technological advances that expanded the realm of the visible, such as electric lighting and photography; Jim Crow–era race relations; America’s closing frontier and imperialism abroad; and growing anxiety about identity and social values amid rapid urbanization. This absorbing study features 150 illustrations encompassing paintings, photographs, prints, scientific illustration, advertising, and popular media to explore the predilection for night imagery as a sign of the times.

Interview with graphic novelist Neil Gaiman.

Celebrating the unique duality of New York City - from its small neighbourhoods and intimate streets to its expansive open spaces and cloud-catching skyscrapers, this is a must-have volume for contemporary art lovers anywhere.

Bestselling author John Connolly's first collection of short fiction,Nocturnes,now features five additional stories -- never-before published for an American audience -- in a dark, daring, utterly haunting anthology of lost lovers and missing children, predatory demons, and vengeful ghosts. In "The New Daughter," a father comes to suspect that a burial mound on his land hides something very ancient, and very much alive; in "The Underbury Witches," two London detectives find themselves battling a particularly female evil in a town culled of its menfolk. And finally, private detective Charlie Parker returns in the long novella "The Reflecting Eye," in which the photograph of an unknown girl turns up in the mailbox of an abandoned house once occupied by an infamous killer. This discovery forces Parker to confront the possibility that the house is not as empty as it appears, and that something has been waiting in the darkness for its chance to kill again.