Life, Mystery and Crime

Philly and its weird tendency to forget its own sons.

by Duane Swierczynski

"Pass me that book, under the Matthew Pearls."

It was a trade paperback with a thin layer of dust on top. The Quaker City, by George Lippard.

"Ever hear of this?"

I shook my head.

"Ooh, you're going to like this guy."

I was having a beer with my friend Ed Pettit, a reviewer and blogger. I'm a book nerd; Ed is a hardcore book nerd. You know how in high school, some nerds would hang out with even bigger nerds to make them feel like less of a nerd? This is why I like hanging out with Ed.

The Quaker City's full title is The Quaker City; or, the Monks of Monk Hall: A Romance of Philadelphia Life, Mystery and Crime. Don't let the "romance" bit throw you. As Ed explained, The Quaker City is a lurid tour of Philadelphia vice circa 1845, and it's full of not only lusty monks, ghouls and gore, but also has scathing critiques of the Philadelphia elite and the political system. (You can read a complete copy online at www.tinyurl.com/wwzsa.) "Shall we elevate the Devil along Chestnut Street?" one character asks, "or shall we subside quietly to our homes?"

The Quaker City is all but forgotten today. But when it was published in 1844, Lippard's novel was wildly popular, not just here but across the country, Ed tells me. Bootleg copies started turning up in Europe. Lippard himself, in a preface to a later edition of the book, wrote: "Shall I tell how it has been praised — how abused — how it has on one hand been cited as a work of great merit, and on the other, ... denounced as the most immoral work of the age?" If a young nation had a Stephen King, it would have been Lippard.

Yet, like The Quaker City, Lippard is all but forgotten today.

Philly has this weird tendency to forget its own sons. Lippard, a police reporter, dramatist and novelist, doesn't deserve to be remembered just for his Gothic Philly potboilers. You know that old story about the Liberty Bell being rung so much on July 4, 1776, that it cracked? It's not true — and don't let any tour guide tell you otherwise. It originated in a Lippard novel about the Revolutionary War.

Lippard also saved his friend, Edgar Allan Poe, from being homeless a number of times. He was also a die-hard social justice crusader; if he were around these days, he'd no doubt be protesting the casinos along with the rest of the "Philadelphia Phourteen" (see Loose Canon, p. 6). There was plenty to set Lippard off. His Philadelphia was full of murders, political scandals and flagrant abuse of the poor. In fact, Lippard writes that he was inspired to write The Quaker City out of fear of the conditions in his native city:

I was the only Protector of an Orphan Sister. I was fearful that I might be taken away by death, leaving her alone in the world. I knew too well that law of society which makes a virtue of the dishonor of a poor girl.

I read those lines and thought of Brian Hickey 's cover story this week, "Disposable Lives." Hickey spent a week in Atlantic City talking to the people who knew the four murdered hookers who have been grabbing headlines for the past month. And what Lippard feared would happen to his sister is exactly what happened, Hickey reveals, to those four dead mothers. The setting is different, but Lippard's "law of society" rings true, more than 160 years later.

So do the political scandals. And God knows, so do the murders.

Lippard died young — at age 32. His photo is shockingly contemporary. Take away the 1840s gear, put him in a tight black T-shirt and a pair of thick black glasses and he could be living in Port Richmond right now.

He's buried in Lawnview Cemetery in Rockledge, about 10 minutes away from where Ed and I sat, drinking beer, talking about his life and work.

Ed was right. I like this guy.

(duane@citypaper.net)