London 1926. Roaring Twenties.
Corruption. Seduction. Debts due.

In a country still recovering from the Great War, London is the focus for a delirious nightlife. In Soho clubs, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time.

There, Nellie Coker is a ruthless ruler, ambitious for her six children. Niven is the eldest, his enigmatic character forged in the harsh Somme. But success breeds enemies. Nellie faces threats from without and within. Beneath the gaiety lies a dark underbelly, where one may be all too easily lost.

Archy and Mehitabel is the now classic tale of Archy, a philosophical cockroach, and Mehitabel, a cat in her ninth life. First published in 1927, this free verse poem has become an essential part of American literature.

Generations of readers have delighted in the work of the great American humorist Don Marquis. Marquis's satirical free-verse poems, which first appeared in his New York newspaper columns in 1916, revolve around the escapades of Archy, a philosophical cockroach who was a poet in a previous life, and Mehitabel, a streetwise alley cat who was once Cleopatra.

Reincarnated as the lowest creatures on the social scale, they prowl the rowdy streets of New York City in between the world wars, and Archy records their experiences and observations on the boss's typewriter late at night.

First published in 1927, Archy and Mehitabel has become a celebrated part of the twentieth-century American literary canon.