Town Topics: Gossip and Scandal in the Gilded Age (coming 2/17)

When Town Topics magazine appeared in the 1880’s, Gilded Age New Yorkers enjoyed its coverage of the arts and culture and social scene of balls, opera and grand parties. But there was another element included in the mix — the often salacious, sensationalized, scandalous coverage of the drama of the gilded set in the publisher’s column “Saunterings”. Using a network of informants across the city, the publisher Colonel William D’Alton Mann often implied gossip of the Four Hundred — unless, of course, he was paid to keep it out of his pages. 

Town Topics became a blackmail and extortion scheme for Mann — until a dramatic sting operation involving the husband of future etiquette writer Emily Post exposed it all. Journalist and author Joe Pompeo joins the Gilded Gentleman table to delve into Town Topics and all of its scandals and true crimes.