In Metropolis on the Styx,David L. Pike considers how underground spaces and their many myths have organized ways of seeing, thinking about, and living in the modern city. Expanding on the cultural history of underground construction in his acclaimed previous book, Subterranean Cities, Pike details the emergence of a vertical city in the imagination of nineteenth-century Paris and London, a city overseen by hosts of devils and undermined by subterranean villains, a city whose ground level was replete with passages between above and below. Metropolis on the Styx brings together a rich variety of visual and written sources ranging from pulp mysteries and movie serials to the poetry of Charles Baudelaire and the novels of Marcel Proust, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Elinor Glyn to the broadsheets and ephemera of everyday urban life. From these materials, Pike conjures a working theory of modern underground space that explains why our notions about urban environments remain essentially nineteenth-century in character, even though cities themselves have since changed almost beyond recognition.Highly original in subject matter, methodology, and conclusions, Metropolis on the Styx synthesizes a number of critical approaches, periods of study, and disciplines in the analysis of a single category of space—the underground. Pike studies the built environments and the textual and visual ephemera (including little-known or unknown archival material) of Paris, London, and other cities in conjunction with canonical modern literature and art. This book integrates a rich visual component—photographs, movie stills, prints, engravings, paintings, cartoons, maps, and drawings of actual and imagined subterranean spaces—into the fabric of the argument.

Excerpt from The Devil Upon Two Sticks: A Comedy in Three Acts Marg. But indeed, my dear brother, you are got quite out of your depth: Woman, I tell you, is a microcosm, and rightly to rule her requires as great talents, as to govern a state. And what says the Aphorism of Cardinal Polignac? "If you would not have a person deceive you, be careful not to let him know you mistrust him!" and so of your daughter. Sir Tho. Mrs. Margaret Maxwell, bestow your advice where it is wanted! Out of my depth! a likely story indeed, that I, who am fixed here in a national trust, appointed guardian of the English interest at the court of Madrid, should not know how to manage a girl! Marg. And pray, Mr. Consul, what information will your station afford you? I don't deny your knowledge in export and import, nor doubt your skill in the difference between wet and dry goods; you may weigh with exactness the balance of trade, or explain the true spirit of a treaty of commerce; the surface, the mere skimmings of the political pot! Sir Tho. Mighty well! Marg. But had you, with me, traced things to their original source; had you discover'd all social subordination to arise from original compact; had you read Machiavel, Montesquieu, Locke, Bacon, Hobbes, Harrington, Hume; had you studied the political testaments of Alberoni and Cardinal Richlieu - Sir Tho. Mercy on us! About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

For this volume George Taylor has edited five plays by two largely forgotten eighteenth-century playwrights, Samuel Foote and Arthur Murphy. The plays are The Minor and The Nabob by Foote and The Citizen, Three Weeks after Marriage and Know Your Own Mind by Murphy. All, apart from the last, are two- or three-act farces, the main popular fare of the eighteenth-century theatre. They are still eminently playable today, each exploring a different aspect of London society. Both playwrights have an acute ear for amusing and socially revealing dialogue, with a deft sense of situation comedy. Foote was an important theatre manager who established the success of the Haymarket Theatre by his particular brand of satire and mimicry. Had Murphy been more assiduous in his theatrical career and maintained good relations with David Garrick, his reputation as a dramatist might now have ranked him alongside Goldsmith and Sheridan.