Saloon keepers, street preachers, gypsies, steel-walking Mohawks, a bearded lady, and a ninety-three-year-old “seafoodetarian” who believes his specialized diet will keep him alive for another two decades are among the people that Joseph Mitchell immortalized in his reportage for the New Yorker and in four books—McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon, Old Mr. Flood, The Bottom of the Harbor, and Joe Gould’s Secret—that are still renowned for their respectful observation, their graveyard humor, and their offhand perfection of style.

These masterpieces (along with several previously uncollected stories) are available in one volume, which presents an indelible collective portrait of an unsuspected New York and its odder citizens—as depicted by one of the great writers of this or any other time.