Published in newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1931, these pieces conjure up a magical, mythical city as Djuna Barnes is rescued by firemen, tangoed across the floor of local dancehalls, lectured to by suffragists and force-fed by the police. A reporter of real life, she goes in search of Chinatown, takes a boat trip round Manhattan Island, pursues a stone-cutter in the Bronx, and breakfasts in Bohemia with women who smoke a hundred cigarettes a day and spill their wine. From Brooklyn's Walkabout Market to the Hippodrome Circus, from a Long Island Boxing Club to the Italian theatre in the Bowery, from the beach of Coney Island to Greenwich Village with its recollections like ears filled with muted music, we are introduced to a New York of energy and eccentricity, a place where anything can happen and anything goes. The illustrations are by the author herself.