The grave robbing of one of the country's wealthiest Gilded Age merchants--Alexander T. Stewart, the Merchant Prince of Manhattan--set off a firestorm in the media, and one of the most celebrated police investigations in the city's history. Immortalized in Mark Twain's humorous story, The Stolen White Elephant, this crime captured the imagination of the American public. Against the backdrop of high society Manhattan, and Gilded Age decadence, this book chronicles the case of the missing body of the Merchant of Manhattan and reveals some of the more unseemly and unusual sides of nineteenth...