Published: 1900

The story of a woman who flees country life for Chicago, Illinois and falls into a wayward life of sin. One of the most important novels America has ever produced, it ruthlessly exposes the hypocrisy and meanness of middle-class standards, and establishes a new tradition in literary realism.

Author: Frank Norris

Published: 1903

This powerful novel is the fictitious narrative of a deal in the Chicago wheat pit and holds the reader from the beginning. In a masterly way the author has grasped the essential spirit of the great city by the lakes. The social existence, the gambling in stocks and produce, the characteristic life in Chicago, form a background for an exceedingly vigorous and human tale of modern life and love.

Published: 1931

With a foreword by Carl Sandburg.

Author: John Richardson

Published: 1850

Author: Horatio Alger Jr.

Published: 1889

Author: Charles King

Published: 1895

The Chicago strike, the riots and their suppression, and the loves of a United States lieutenant and a high-minded young lady who works a typewriter. It is her "tame surrender," after long resistance, which gives the tale its title.

Published: 1922

"One Thousand and One Afternoons" were launched in June, 1921. They were presented to the public as journalism extraordinary; journalism that invaded the realm of literature, where in large part, journalism really dwells. They went out backed by confidence in the genius of Ben Hecht.

Published: 1906

A vivid portrayal of life in the Chicago stockyards, with revelations so shocking one cannot read them without being filled with horror.

Published: 1893

Within the confines of Chicago's Clifton Building, hundreds of people live, work, and act out the dramas of their daily existence. Fuller analyzes, with deftness and precision, a large cast of characters reacting to this limited environment.

Published: 1903

The Periodical Souse, the Never-Again Feeling and the Ride On the Sprinkling Cart.--The Kind of Music That Is Too Good for Household Use.--The One or Two Points of Difference Between Learning and Learning How.--The Night-Watch and the Would-Be Something Awful.--The Attenuated Attorney Who Rang In the Associate Counsel.--What Father Bumped Into at the Culture Factory.--The Search for the Right House and How Mrs. Jump Had Her Annual Attack.--The Batch of Letters, or One Day With a Busy Man.--The Sickly Dream and How It Was Doctored Up.--The Two Old Pals and the Call for Help.--The Regular Kind of a Place and the Usual Way It Turned Out.--The Man Who Had a True Friend to Steer Him Along.--The Young Napoleon Who Went Back to the Store On Monday Morning.--The High Art That Was a Little Too High for the Vulgarian Who Paid the Bills.--The Patient Toiler Who Got It in the Usual Place.--The Summer Vacation That Was Too Good to Last.--How an Humble Beginner Moved from one Pinnacle to Another and Played the Entire Circuit.--The Maneuvers of Joel and the Disappointed Orphan Asylum.--Two Young People, Two Photographers and the Corresponding School of Wooing.--The Married Couple That Went to Housekeeping and Began to Find Out Things.--The Samaritan Who Got Paralysis of the Helping Hand.--The Effort to Convert the Work Horse Into a High-Stepper.--The Self-Made Hezekiah and His Message of Hope to This Year's Crop of Graduates.--The Girl Who Took Notes and Got Wise and Then Fell Down.--What They Had Laid Out for Their Vacation.--The Experimental Couple and the Three Off-Shoots.

Published: 1899

The author may excuse the presentation of these sketches to the public on the ground that, if he did not publish some of them, somebody would, and, if he did not publish the others, nobody would. He has taken the liberty to dedicate the book to certain enterprising gentlemen in London who have displayed their devotion to a sentiment now widely prevailing in the Music Halls by republishing an American book without solicitation on the author's part. At the same time he begs to reserve in petto a second dedication to the people of Archey Road, whose secluded gayety he has attempted to discover to the world.

Published: 1901

A collection of three stories bearing upon the conditions of artistic and literary life in Chicago. It is a book à clef, no doubt, yet the portraiture is rather typical than specific, and the traits of each character are combined by a sort of eclectic process.

The Downfall of Abner Joyce.--Little O'Grady vs. the Grindstone.--Dr. Gowdy and the Squash.

Published: 1908

Frank Harris' fictional account of the Haymarket Affair of 1886 focuses on Rudolph Schnaubelt, a German immigrant whose socialist background, discontent with his chosen country, and hatred for authority lead him to join the Chicago anarchists during the labor unrest of the 1880s. When strikes at the Pullman and McCormick plants and discontent among the stockyard employees and other workers throughout the city culminate in public demonstrations and riots which Chicago police attempt to control, it is Rudolph Schnaubelt who sets off a bomb killing eight policemen and injuring sixty people at a rally in Haymarket Square. The story is told in the first person, as seen through the eyes of Schnaubelt, who escapes to Bavaria where he watches closely the events which follow in the wake of his action. The Bomb is a depressing book on an ugly subject. Even an attempt by the author to relieve the demoralizing influence of the novel through the addition of a romantic sub-plot does little to alleviate the total starkness of the story and the writing. --Book Review Digest, 1909

Published: 1904

Jackson Hart has studied architecture at an eastern technical school, at Cornell University, and at the Paris Beaux Arts, compliments of his uncle, Powers Jackson, a wealthy Chicago bridge builder. At his uncle's death, he inherits only $10,000 of the vast fortune the old man has accumulated, while the rest of the estate is left in trust to educate the children of local working men. Inspired by anger, Hart joins Chicago's most prominent architectural firm, and appears to have a brilliant career before him. But greed, ambition, and a desire to get away from the common lot soon lead him into unscrupulous practices and threatened legal action. The Common Lot is a thought provoking analysis of the attitudes and methods of Chicago's super rich during the years prior to the turn of the twentieth century. --Book Review Digest, 1905

Published: 1893

Assuming her favorite role, that of Samantha Allen, Marietta Holley has employed her leisurely, homespun style, liberally accented with droll practicality, soapbox moralization, quaint aphorisms, and an abundance of hilarious malapropisms in creating this mammoth novel of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. The first nine chapters ramble on interminably, filled with the trivialities of home life in Jonesville, New York, and Miss Holley's favorite causes--women's suffrage, temperance, and politics--with hardly a mention of Chicago or the fair. Then, when the reader is least expecting it, she tackles the Exposition with an enthusiasm and precision that carry the story through 694 pages. She describes buildings, grounds, exhibits, and events in minute detail, adding her own interpretations, often rambling from the theme for several pages before continuing on with her topic and frequently assuming the role of crusader for one or another of her causes. But in spite of its shortcomings Samantha at the World's Fair is one of the most accurate and detailed fictional accounts of the Columbian Exposition ever written. --Chautauquan, 3/1894

Published: 1916

Curly, a stereotype of the illiterate lovable cowpoke encountered in books and on film but seldom in reality, relates the story of Bonnie Bell Wright in her search for culture, happiness and a suitable husband. After growing up on a Wyoming ranch with a doting father and a host of admiring cowboys, beautiful Bonnie Bell is transported to Smith College to "... be made a lady of " then to Chicago where her father and Curly have adjourned to live out their lives in style. Bonnie Bell's introduction to society and ostracism at the hand of Chicago's wealthy and elite make entertaining, though somewhat less than essential, reading for the fiction enthusiast. --Book Review Digest, 1917

Published: 1892

When riots break out during a railroad strike in Chicago, Lieutenant Drummond and his troop of army recruits are transferred from Arizona to help quell the disturbance. Drummond and his men use western army tactics on the rioters fighting with rifles and in hand-to-hand combat until the strike leader is killed and the strikers go grudgingly back to their jobs. Charles King, who is best known for his novels of army life and Indian fighting, might best have maintained his cavalry west of the Mississippi, for his familiarity with frontier army life far exceeds his knowledge of labor relations or Chicago social conditions as displayed in Foes in Ambush.

Published: 1912

The friendship of Achilles Alexandrakis, a Greek immigrant, and Betty Harris, daughter of a Chicago millionaire, begins by chance when one day Betty attempts to find her way home alone from her music lesson, and wanders into Alexandrakis' fruit stand on Clark Street.

Published: 1908

A futuristic tale of fascist tyranny and socialist revolution considered a classic work of American radical literature. Much admired by Eugene Debs, Leon Trotsky, and George Orwell.

A prophecy in retrospect The Iron Heel concerns the era from 1912 to 1932, as viewed from seven hundred years in the future. A journal kept by Avis Everhard during that period, but not published until 419 B. O. M. (Brotherhood of Man), tells of her husband's part in organizing and carrying out the plans for the First and Second Revolts which eventually lead to worldwide socialism. The novel, which might better be described as a socialist tract rather than a work of fiction, progresses from the philosophical to the physical as the action moves from drawing room encounters between intellectuals to street clashes between militia and laborers. Because of its history of Labor strife, Chicago is the site chosen for the revolts, although most of the planning takes place in California. --Book Review Digest, 1908

Published: 1905

A foundling from an orphan asylum is instrumental in saving the crumbling marriage of an obscure railroad man and his wife. The same foundling, twenty years later, is the source of tragedy for her adoptive parents, her fiance, and herself. A romance of 1890s Chicago, Jane Cable has a contrived plot and stereotyped characters, but the plot moves and the characters play their roles in a manner reminiscent of Jane Austin or Charlotte Bronte creations. --Book Review Digest, 1906

Author: Charles McCellan Stevens

Published: 1893

Published: 1922

Eight stories of tangy satire and sweet sentimentality. Filled with human drama, unfaltering reason, and extraordinary description.

The Afternoon of a Faun.
Old Man Minick.
Gigolo.
Not a Day Over Twenty-One.
Home Girl.
Ain't Nature Wonderful!
The Sudden Sixties.
If I Should Ever Travel!

Author: Bannister Merwin

Published: 1909

Published: 1904

A story which points every young man in business life to one of the greatest highways to success.

Said to be Ayn Rand's favorite novel.

Published: 1921

A policeman on his nightly rounds in one of the most exclusive residential areas of Chicago hears a shot -- but prompt investigation yields no clues, no victim, and no witnesses. Still, Detective Sergeant Morgan soon determines that something has happened and someone has disappeared, leaving only the slenderest of clues. Will he get to the bottom of this Uptown mystery?

Author: Henry Kitchell Webster

Published: 1900

Although Chicago is not mentioned in the book as the scene of action, the Chamber of Commerce of that city is the point round which the action centers. The Bear and the Banker are chums. The Bull is financed by the Banker in the endeavor to run the "corner" in lard, and the story derives its title from the necessity found by the Bear for the ruin of his chum the Banker, in order to upset the financial schemes of the Bull. A stirring love story threads its way through the financial excitement of the book.

Published: 1947

Vice and murder prowl Chicago--and one man hunts a killer through the glittering Gold Coast and seamy back alleys. (1948 winner of the Edgar Award for Best First Novel.)

Published: 1900

A realistic, and to a great extent, a philosophic study of modern American life: the scene is Chicago, and the writer gives searching views of society there. The hero is a doctor, and the organization of medical practitioners is well brought out. Having saved the life of a drunkard by an operation that injures the brain, he falls in love with the man's wife, and the situation thus produced is a specimen of the problems raised. The story of the woman's futile effort to realize her character in this chaos of repressing forces, and her suicide, is tragic, but it is not unwholesome. "It is strong in that it faithfully depicts many phases of American life, and uses them to strengthen a web of fiction, which is most artistically wrought out."--Buffalo Express.

Published: 1945

Dead Girls Have More Fun

The reporter at her trial wrote: "Anna Marie St. Clair, convicted murderess of Big Joe Childers, seemed like a woman carved out of stone."

A sentence of death by electrocution will do that to a murderess. The problem was, Anna had not, in fact, killed her lover. She'd been cruelly framed.

Then, at the eleventh hour, the true murderer confesses. Anna becomes a free woman. A free woman with a frightening plan. She blackmails the authorities into reporting her execution. Now the world at large, including those who had sent her up, thinks she fried.

Anna's next step is to seek out gin-soaked, falling-in-love lawyer J. J. Malone. And with his exuberant approval, Anna sets out on a devilish trail of haunting revenge.

Author: Lawrence L. Lynch

Published: 1894

Follow the adventures of a Secret Service agent at the Chicago World’s Fair.

Published: 1915

A newspaper story in part, the hero being a reporter of a most unusual turn of mind and experience of the world; but the main theme has to do with the regeneration of some youthful and heedless but really lovable members of the most aristocratic and wealthy caste of the great city Chicago, through the agency of the hero reporter.