NoirCon, Part VI: Philadelphia's own George Lippard

At least one suggestive and unexpected connection emerged between NoirCon's (mostly) American subjects and this blog's (mostly) non-American ones.

Ed Pettit's presentation early in the program focused on a mid-nineteenth-century Philadelphia journalist, author, social reformer and outsize character named George Lippard and his 1844-5 gothic/crime novel The Quaker City; or, the Monks of Monk Hall. Two days later, Pettit mentioned over coffee that Lippard had sued over pirated German translations of his work published in Philadelphia — and Germany. That sounds to me like an early and little-known instance of crime fiction crossing borders. That it crossed into Germany and not into France is especially interesting.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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