James Reavis and the Paper Empire
He forged a Spanish pedigree, sold a chunk of the West, and behaved like a gentleman who had misplaced his napkin and claimed the tablecloth.Read More 
Why Neal Dow's Temperance Parade Turned Ugly
A mayor with a crusade, a suspicious cask, and a seaside crowd that decided manners could wait.Read More 
When Whitechapel Lost Its Temper and Everyone Took Notes
A cramped corner of Victorian London, foreign headlines, and a mob that turned domestic grievance into a very loud public spectacle.Read More 
Ferdinand Ward and the Jolly Ledger
A bright young financier, a former president's good name, and a ledger that preferred fiction to figures.Read More 
The Mad Surgeon Who Loved Dictionaries and Shot a Man
A peculiar London killing that produced a criminal lunatic, a very large lexicon habit, and correspondence that rescued a work of national ambition.Read More 
Martha Tabram and the Night at George Yard
A bit of Whitechapel that refused to behave quietly, a woman with a shabby life and a peculiar headline appetite from the press.Read More 
Gould's Gold Gambit
A grotesquely elegant wheeze in 1869 where Jay Gould and a gentlemanly accomplice tried to buy the nation's glittering coin.Read More 
How a Secret Society Made Boilers Miserable
A grim little campaign of mucked-up pumps, undercover detectives and one community that treated steam engines like enemy generals.Read More 
The Ham That Caused a Huffy Scandal
A provincial butcher, a lifted ham, and a courtroom that preferred paperwork over common sense - ghastly, marvellous, and utterly human.Read More 
When the Fenians Tried to Make Trains Disappear (Almost)
A ludicrously earnest campaign of tiny explosions, grand politics and one extraordinary public hiss of panic that left magistrates baffled and the populace rather cross.Read More 