“Until now, no one has attempted to capture the multiplicity of viewpoints and commentary on the city across time in one volume. An Atlantic City Reader provides history, entertainment, and social commentary on ‘America’s Famous Playground’ through a variety of lenses and voices.” —Heather Perez, Stockton University and Atlantic City historian

Atlantic City has always loomed large in the imaginations of American writers. Generations of novelists, journalists, musicians, and poets have visited it and left with vivid impressions of its seedy underbelly and kaleidoscopic delights. This anthology traces the city’s boom, bust, and possible resurgence.

This new reader collects diverse perspectives on the city, compiling fiction, poetry, drama, memoirs, newspaper stories, and magazine reports to present an engaging portrait of the iconic resort town. With accounts by such famous visitors as Walt Whitman, Arthur Conan Doyle, Fanny Hurst, Langston Hughes, John McPhee, Elmore Leonard, Sonora Webster Carver, Bruce Springsteen, and many more, the anthology follows the city from its humble beginnings as a quiet health resort to its heyday as “the world’s playground” and its gradual decline. We see the city’s glitz and glamour; its troubling histories of racial discrimination, political corruption, and urban decay; and its hopeful—if tenuous—future.