"BURGLAR, SNEAK AND TILL-TAPPER": PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS OF AMERICA, 1886, WITH OVER 200 PHOTOGRAPHS

BYRNES, Thomas. Professional Criminals of America. New York: Cassell, (1886). Quarto, modern three-quarter brown morocco gilt, raised bands, black morocco spine label, marbled boards and edges. $1800.

First edition of this richly illustrated compendium of 19th-century criminals, featuring over 200 photographs.

Illustrated with photographs of over 200 New York criminals, this work—intended to help the public fight crime—describes different types of criminals and methods such as "bank sneak thieves," "confidence and banco men," "tricks of sawdust or green goods men," "frauds in horse sales," opium use, and "robbery by drugs," in addition to more familiar illegal activities. The volume also includes prison commutation laws (compiled by state) and a list of prisons and reformatories in the United States and its territories. The author was one of the best-known detectives of the Gilded Age, a New York City Police Superintendent who made his reputation leading the investigations of the Jim Fisk assassination, the Manhattan Savings Bank robbery of 1878, the Russell Sage dynamite attack and numerous other high-profile cases. Library stamp to verso of title page.

In near-fine condition.