Jack Dempsey and the Roaring Twenties

The Life and Times of a Boxing Icon

Thomas Myler, Tom Myler

• Publisher: Pitch Publishing
• eBook ISBN:
  9781785317057
• Year: 2020

The Roaring Twenties was an era of high living and extravagance, of hot jazz and new fashions, when America lived as if there were no tomorrow. It was a time when the heavyweight boxing champion of the world reigned supreme in sport and Jack Dempsey was the idol of the age. This definitive biography takes us through the thrilling career of the "Manassa Mauler." Dempsey's fights are part of boxing folklore: the massacre of giant Jess Willard, the first million-dollar gate against French hero Georges Carpentier, the sensational war with Luis Firpo, the bout with Tom Gibbons that bankrupted a town and the controversial "Battle of the Long Count" with Gene Tunney. Dempsey packed more drama into his career than almost any other boxer in history. A one-time hobo and saloon fighter, he came up the hard way and punched his way to fame and fortune. Tom Myler had the benefit of interviewing Dempsey in his retirement years, and he draws on their exchanges to give you the full inside story of Jack's life and times.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Prologue
• Go west, young man
• New York, New York
• ‘Doc’ has the cure
• Land of the giants
• Jack the giant killer
• A Christmas present for Billy
• Beauty and the Beast
• The shambles of Shelby
• Brawl in the park
• A rainy night in Philadelphia
• A tale of two Jacks
• Jack Dempsey’s record
• Selected bibliography
• Photos