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Nell Kimball
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Nell Kimball: Her Life as an American Madam, by Herself (New York Review Books Classics) Paperback – April 16, 2024

by Nell Kimball (Author), Stephen Longstreet (Editor, Introduction)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 8 ratings
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A witty, wild-spirited, purely American autobiography by a prostitute-turned-madam who lived and operated at the turn of the twentieth century.

“Looking back on my life, and it’s the only way I can look at it now, nothing in it came out the way most people would want their life to be lived. And while I began at fifteen in a good house with no plans, just wanting as a young whore to hunker on to something to eat and something good to wear, I ended up as a business woman, becoming a sporting house madam, recruiting, disciplining whores, running high-class places. Always wondering, too, why it had happened just that way. Now I can say, if I ever had me any remorse, I never had any regrets.”

So begin the remarkable reminiscences of Nell Kimball. From her beginnings as a young hooker in St. Louis, to life as a madam in New Orleans, wide-open San Francisco, and back again in the polite soft-spoken corruption of New Orleans, Kimball recounts her own American success story while training a knowing eye on America at large.

With its down-to-earth, straight-shooting American eloquence, this shrewd, uninhibited, and frequently comic autobiography, as edited by Stephen Longstreet, reads like a cross between Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders and Bob Dylan’s Chronicles.
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  1. Print length
    320 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    NYRB Classics
  4. Publication date
    April 16, 2024
  5. Dimensions
    5 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1681375788
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1681375786
  8. See all details
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The Amazon Book Review
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A remarkable book by a remarkable woman.” —The New York Times

About the Author

Nell Kimball (1854–1934) was a writer and madam. During her career she operated brothels in San Francisco and New Orleans. She retired from the trade in 1917. The exact time and place of her death is unknown. 

Stephen Longstreet (1907–2002) was a prolific artist and author of fiction, nonfiction, stage plays, and screenplays. Among his written works are the novels The Sisters Liked Them Handsome, which was adapted into the Broadway musical High Button Shoes, and Stallion Road, which was adapted into a film of the same name.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ NYRB Classics (April 16, 2024)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1681375788
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1681375786
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 8 ratings

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Nell Kimball

Nell Kimball

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Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
8 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Pamela Volk
5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it!
Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2021
Verified Purchase
I love the truth in this book. It transpirts me back in time to 1800s St Louis, New York and New Orleans
One person found this helpful
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Rose M. Gatto
4.0 out of 5 stars As you get further into the book it slows down ...
Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2015
Verified Purchase
As you get further into the book it slows down quite a bit, but she was quite explicit in overall details.
One person found this helpful
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Sailorman
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2016
Verified Purchase
Fascinating book
One person found this helpful
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TwilightStar
5.0 out of 5 stars No-holds-barrd Good book Language might put off the more delicate reader
Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2015
An excellent, no-holds-barred, no excuses, practical, honest book. It's direct and worth the read. If you are squeamish about "certain words" you may be put off. Nell Kimball was self-taught. She made a life for herself from nothing. She was a tough survivor with a real head for business and marketing. It makes you wonder what she could have achieved with an education. Even though she was a madam the two men she picked to marry weren't worthy of her. If she had found a good man and left the life then she probably wouldn't have wrote the book. Of particular interest were all the sections devoted to the payoff (with money and/or sexual favors) of all of those (wink,wink) respectable, upstanding government officials and politicians.
3 people found this helpful
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Elijah Wald
1.0 out of 5 stars This book is fiction, or fraud
Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2021
Longstreet invented the character of Nell Kimball as a source for his earlier book on Storyville and, when that book sold well, invented this memoir as a follow-up. There was no such person, and Longstreet is an extremely unreliable source for anything -- he also routinely made up quotations from historical figures, jazz musicians, and anyone else he wanted to quote.
7 people found this helpful
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h. rousseau
5.0 out of 5 stars valuable peek at american social history
Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2005
This book should be a cult classic, but apparently is not --- though it seems to have had a second life in Germany. Though I've not yet read all the autobiographies the world has to offer, I can tell you that this one gives the most vivid and thorough ground-level portrait of America in the nineteenth century that one is likely to find. So far as female autobiographies go, place it between Helen Keller and Frances Farmer. Too good to be neglected.
8 people found this helpful
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Golindrina
4.0 out of 5 stars A lot of fun to read!
Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2012
"Nell Kimball" was a very capable writer, especially for someone with no formal education. She provides a fascinating look at America from the 1860's to the 1920's from her vantage point as a worker in the high class sex trade. Her frankness and humor are very refreshing. She quotes her brother, on his success at picking up girls at revival meetings, "It's more fun than the general store!". Reads like a novel.
2 people found this helpful
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