Author: George H. Devol
Publisher: Applewood Books
ISBN: 1557091102
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 317
Get Book Here
Book Description
George H. Devol was the greatest riverboat gambler in the history of the Mississippi. Born in Ohio in 1829, he ran away from home and worked as a cabin boy at age ten. At fourteen he could stack a deck of cards. Over the years, he bilked soldiers, paymasters, cotton buyers, thieves, and businessmen alike. He fought more fights than anyone, and was never beaten. This is his story. Nobody was ever bored by it.
Author: Devol George H.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780243731091
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: Ann Fabian
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113668557X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Get Book Here
Book Description
In a highly readable work that engages topics in American cultural, social and business history, Ann Fabian details the place of gambling in industrializing America. Card Sharps and Bucket Shops investigates the relationship between gambling and other ways of making profit, such as speculation and land investment, which became entrenched during the nineteenth century. While all these undertakings ran counter to deeply ingrained American--and Protestant--work ethics, only gambling took on a stigma that made other efforts to acquire wealth socially acceptable. Fabian considers here the reformers who sought to ban gambling; psychological explanations for the deviant gambler; numbers games in the African American community; and efforts by speculators to draw distinctions between their own activities and gambling. She combines first-rate cultural analysis with rigorous research, and along the way provides a wealth of colorful details, characters and anecdotes.
Author: George Devol
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781541264021
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Get Book Here
Book Description
Historical reprint
Author: George H. Devol
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Frontier and pioneer life
Languages : en
Pages : 300
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: George H. Devol
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Gambling
Languages : en
Pages : 300
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: George H. Devol
Publisher: Johnson Reprint Corporation
ISBN:
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Get Book Here
Book Description
A cabin boy in 1839 could steal cards and cheat the boys at eleven stock a deck at fourteen bested soldiers on the Rio Grande during the Mexican war won hundreds of thousands from paymasters, cotton buyers, defaulters and thieves fought more rough and tum
Author: Thomas Ruys Smith
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807137367
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 286
Get Book Here
Book Description
In Blacklegs, Card Sharps, and Confidence Men, Thomas Ruys Smith collects nineteenth-century stories, sketches, and book excerpts by a gallery of authors to create a comprehensive collection of writings about the riverboat gambler. The voices of canonized writers such as William Dean Howells, Herman Melville, and, inevitably, Mark Twain hold prominent positions. But they mingle seamlessly with lesser-known pieces such as an excerpt from Edward Willett's sensationalistic dime novel Flush Fred's Full Hand, raucous sketches by anonymous Old Southwestern humorists from The Spirit of the Times, and colorful accounts by now nearly forgotten authors like Daniel R. Hundley and George W. Featherstonhaugh. Smith puts the twenty-eight selections in perspective with an Introduction that for the first time thoroughly explores the history and myth surrounding this endlessly fascinating American cultural icon.
Author: G R Williamson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781674760780
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Get Book Here
Book Description
Without a doubt, George Devol was the most notorious of the Mississippi riverboat gamblers. He mastered the fine art of card manipulation at an early age and by the time he reached twenty he was an accomplished card sharp. Devol could stack a deck, deal seconds or from the bottom of the deck. Though he had large hands, he could nimbly palm cards or insert cards with ease. He knew all the tricks to skin wealthy plantation owners, merchants, businessmen, soldiers, and even ministers who traveled on the busy waterways of the nineteenth century.At the same time, Devol was a maestro at working the short cons, particularly 3 card Monte. He and his partners raked in millions from fleeced suckers over the course of his forty years as a crooked gambler.George Devol - Notorious Riverboat Gambler, Card Sharp & Scam Artist tells his story in vivid detail based on solid historical research. Then, Devol tells his own story through his meandering, semi-autobiography, Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi, he published in 1896 at the age of 67 when he retired from gambling. In a series of 179 memoirs, he recounts the major events of his gambling life. Though heavily embellished, his accounts divulge his cheating technics and his philosophy about skinning his victims. Allowing for his penchant for self-aggrandizement, the memoirs are a hoot to read. George Devol's book is included with all of his stories appearing exactly as he published them in 1896, with all the spelling and grammatical mistakes intact. The steamboat scoundrel was a major character in the history of the Old West and his story is told in a humorous, entertaining style and is the first book to cover his entire saga.
Author: George H. Devol
Publisher: Forgotten Books
ISBN: 9781334998591
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 314
Get Book Here
Book Description
Excerpt from Forty Years a Gambler: On the Mississippi The author of this book has written the stories as they would recur to his memory, and no effort has been made at classification. They are not fictitious; many of the persons named are now livi
