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Winner of the David J. Langum, Sr., Prize in American Historical Fiction

Named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post and “Required Reading” by the New York Post

Edward Rutherfurd celebrates America’s greatest city in a rich, engrossing saga, weaving together tales of families rich and poor, native-born and immigrant—a cast of fictional and true characters whose fates rise and fall and rise again with the city’s fortunes. From this intimate perspective we see New York’s humble beginnings as a tiny Indian fishing village, the arrival of Dutch and British merchants, the Revolutionary War, the emergence of the city as a great trading and financial center, the convulsions of the Civil War, the excesses of the Gilded Age, the explosion of immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the trials of World War II, the near demise of New York in the 1970s and its roaring rebirth in the 1990s, and the attack on the World Trade Center. A stirring mix of battle, romance, family struggles, and personal triumphs, New York: The Novel gloriously captures the search for freedom and opportunity at the heart of our nation’s history.

Edward Rutherfurd on New York


Strangely, I suspect it was Viking ancestors who drew me to New York.
For centuries my father's family lived on Britain's biggest tidal river, the Severn, on which there was a huge trade with the interior, and through the port of Bristol with America. In the nineteenth century they were in shipping from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and on the great rivers of Europe--the Rhine, the Danube, even the Russian River Dnieper. I myself was born beside a river--the Avon in Sarum. So when I first encountered New York's great harbor and the Hudson River as a teenager, and came to understand their historic canal and railroad links to the vast spaces of the Midwest, I felt both the thrill of a new adventure, and a deep sense of homecoming.
I first considered writing New York in 1991. I'd been in the city for a decade, was married to an American wife and sending my children to New York schools. I was even on the board of a coop building. But I wasn't sure how to organize such complex material, and for many years I put the project aside.
It was kind encouragement and old-fashioned editing from William Thomas at Doubleday that finally persuaded me to try again. And soon I was hooked.
New York's gift to the storyteller is magnificent: Indian and Dutch beginnings; larger-than-life historical characters like Lord Cornbury, the transvestite British Governor, the socialite Mrs. Astor, and the titanic J.P. Morgan; huge events from the Revolutionary War and the Civil War--when New York threatened to secede from the Union--to the Crash of '29 and the tragedy of 9/11. But it's the ordinary people I discover in my research--African slaves, Irish laborers, society ladies and sweatshop workers--whose lives move me most, and who provide so many of my plots and characters.
My own personal experiences also helped. I descend from both Philadelphia Quakers and Carolina colonists whose families were separated by the Revolutionary War. That helped give me insight into the agony of Patriots who, until the British government denied their claims, had always, like Ben Franklin himself, thought of themselves as free-born Englishmen. One of my closest friends since university is an Italian immigrant. Understanding the poverty and humiliations of her childhood helped me create the book's Caruso family who came through Ellis Island and lived in Little Italy.
I also love discovering how things work. It was as fascinating to study the history of Wall Street banking--and how financial crises always repeat themselves!--as it was to learn how the Empire State Building was constructed.
But above all, what I love about New York is that people have always come there in search of freedom, and usually found it. I was lucky to be born beside Sarum's Avon. But I'd like my New York children to scatter my ashes in the Hudson. --Edward Rutherfurd
(Photo © Jeanne Maseoro)

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NEW YORK - MAY 05: Actress Scarlett Johansson departs from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala, Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 5, 2008 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)

This book presents the epic story of New York in photographs, photo-portraits, maps, and aerial views—nearly 600 pages of emotional, atmospheric images, from the mid-19th century to the present day. Supplementing this treasure trove of images are hundreds of quotations and references from relevant books, movies, shows and songs. The city's fluctuating fortunes are all represented, from the wild nights of the Jazz Age and the hedonistic disco era, to the grim days of the Depression and the devastation of 9/11 and its aftermath, as its broken-hearted but unbowed citizens picked up the pieces.
Chapter One (1850-1913) focuses on New York's dramatic emergence as America's greatest metropolis. Chapter Two (1914-1945) traces the boom of the 1920s, the Great Depression, and the construction of the city's most famous landmarks: the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building and Rockefeller Center. Chapter Three (1946-1965) sees New York become the world's first truly international city, with the construction of the U.N. headquarters. In Chapter Four, the Big Apple loses its shine (1966-1987) during a period of economic decline, social protest and mean streets. Chapter Five (1988-2009) sees New York rise again from the lean times of the 1970s and early 80s, only to be devastated by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which forever alter the city's landscape—and its sense of self. More than just a remarkable tribute to the metropolis and its civic, social, and photographic heritage, New York: Portrait of a City pays homage to the indomnitable spirit of those who call themselves New Yorkers: full of hope and strength, resolute in their determination to succeed among its glass and granite towers.
Features hundreds of iconic images, sourced from dozens of archives and private collections—many never before published—and the work of over 150 celebrated photographers, including: Victor Prevost, Jacob Riis, Lewis Hine, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans, Weegee, Margaret Bourke-White, Saul Leiter, Esther Bubley, Arnold Newman, William Claxton, Ralph Gibson, Ryan McGinley, Mitch Epstein, Steve Schapiro, Mary Ellen Mark, Marvin Newman, Allen Ginsberg, Joel Meyerowitz, Andreas Feininger, Neil Leifer, Charles Cushman, Joseph Rodriguez, Garry Winogrand, Larry Fink, Jamal Shabazz, Allan Tannenbaum, Bruce Davidson, Helen Levitt, Eugene de Salignac, James Nachtwey, Ruth Orkin, Joel Sternfeld, Bruce Davidson, Keizo Kitajima, and many many more.