Old-Time Saloon : Not Wet - Not Dry, Just History

George Ade (1866-1944) was a prolific journalist/wit/playwright from Indiana whose Fables in Slang were syndicated nationally and produced as movies. This little book should amuse fans of early twentieth-century American humor and anyone who, as they raise a glass to pre-Prohibition traditions, wants to know more about them. Written in 1931 (towards the end of Prohibition, over in 1933) the book is a work of propaganda masquerading as ?just history”; it is also an exercise in nostalgia: an ode to the men’s club of yore, when beer was a nickel and the sardines were free. Our reprint, with an Introduction and Notes by ex-bartender and historian Bill Savage, will be a facsimile of the first edition, including twelve old-time illustrations.

Born and educated in Indiana but a long-time Chicagoan, George Ade (1866?1944) was a prolific journalist, a Broadway playwright, and a humorist whose newspaper columns, Fables in Slang and Stories of the Streets and of the Town, were syndicated nationally, collected in books, and produced as films, some of which Ade directed. Bill Savage is associate professor of instruction in the Department of English at Northwestern University, as well as a bartender emeritus.