3.5
The Big Con
ByPublisher Description
The classic 1940 study of con men and con games that Luc Sante in Salon called “a bonanza of wild but credible stories, told concisely with deadpan humor, as sly and rich in atmosphere as anything this side of Mark Twain.”
“Of all the grifters, the confidence man is the aristocrat,” wrote David Maurer, a proposition he definitely proved in The Big Con, one of the most colorful, well-researched, and entertaining works of criminology ever written. A professor of linguistics who specialized in underworld argot, Maurer won the trust of hundreds of swindlers, who let him in on not simply their language but their folkways and the astonishingly complex and elaborate schemes whereby unsuspecting marks, hooked by their own greed and dishonesty, were “taken off” – i.e. cheated—of thousands upon thousands of dollars.
The Big Con is a treasure trove of American lingo (the write, the rag, the payoff, ropers, shills, the cold poke, the convincer, to put on the send) and indelible characters (Yellow Kid Weil, Barney the Patch, the Seldom Seen Kid, Limehouse Chappie, Larry the Lug). It served as the source for the Oscar-winning film The Sting.
“Of all the grifters, the confidence man is the aristocrat,” wrote David Maurer, a proposition he definitely proved in The Big Con, one of the most colorful, well-researched, and entertaining works of criminology ever written. A professor of linguistics who specialized in underworld argot, Maurer won the trust of hundreds of swindlers, who let him in on not simply their language but their folkways and the astonishingly complex and elaborate schemes whereby unsuspecting marks, hooked by their own greed and dishonesty, were “taken off” – i.e. cheated—of thousands upon thousands of dollars.
The Big Con is a treasure trove of American lingo (the write, the rag, the payoff, ropers, shills, the cold poke, the convincer, to put on the send) and indelible characters (Yellow Kid Weil, Barney the Patch, the Seldom Seen Kid, Limehouse Chappie, Larry the Lug). It served as the source for the Oscar-winning film The Sting.
11 Reviews
3.5
juosun
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“Proper review/fleshed out thoughts pending but this was fun. I’ve been getting into game theory and maybe its just the primordial pattern recognition urge but there’s an overlap here that I loved”
JoeAM
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Andrew Keefe
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DasStoops
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Robert Starr
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“This book could have benefited from a good editor. The cons described are interesting, though there's a similarity to many of them and we never see how they work with an appropriate depth. Though the author, David Maurer, clearly talked to some successful con men, and manages to use a bit of their terminology, I do think that having things in their own words may have worked better.
This is a tough book to write, I imagine, owing to the amount of improvisation required to perform these acts of deception. On some level, there must be tricks for dealing with certain types of marks, though there wouldn't be any skill necessary if grifters didn't need to think on their toes and be able to respond to any situation.
Maurer handles this by giving example cases of the con, though it'd be nice to go into a bit more of the varieties that con artists employ.
That being said, this is probably the definitive book on the subject and worth reading for those with an interest.”
About David Maurer
David W. Maurer was a professor of Linguistics at the University of Louisville until his death in 1981. His other books include Whiz Mob and Kentucky Moonshine.
Luc Sante is the author of Low Life, an acclaimed account of New York’s underworld.; the memoir Factory of Facts; and Evidence.
Luc Sante is the author of Low Life, an acclaimed account of New York’s underworld.; the memoir Factory of Facts; and Evidence.
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