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Baby Face Nelson: Portrait of a Public Enemy
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Baby Face Nelson: Portrait of a Public Enemy Hardcover - 2002

by Steven Nickel; William J. Helmer

Using new information that comes from the formerly classified files of the FBI, this book tells the full story of the remarkable criminal career of Baby Face Nelson. Illustrations.


From the publisher

Lester Joseph Gillis -- better known to the public and press of the 1930s as Baby Face Nelson -- was one of a succession of public enemies beginning with John Dillinger and progressing to Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker, Machine Gun Kelly, and Pretty Boy Floyd. For decades their stories were largely myths, containing a combination of popular folklore and carefuly crafted FBI fables.

In recent years historians have generated a more factual look at the life and times of the various Depression-era desperados. Until now Baby Face Nelson has remained as enigmatic and one-dimensional as he was then, portrayed by J. Edgar Hoover and newsmen as a trigger-happy punk who looked like a choirboy and killed without a conscience. Finally the full story of his short life can be told.

Using new information that comes from the formerly classified files of the FBI, the Nelson who emerges from the pages of Baby Face Nelson: Portrait of a Public Enemy is a more paradoxical and interesting figure than one might expect. Obviously addicted to crime in his youth and evidently intoxicated with violence near the end of his life, he came from an ordinary, honest middle-class family. In a surprising departure from the gangster norm, Nelson and his wife remained fiercely devoted to one another, and between holdups they often lived a quiet domestic life with their two children and, at times, Nelson's mother.

The main focus of this biography is on Nelson's remarkable criminal career, from sensational bank robberies and blazing gun battles up to his death at the age of twenty-five. Many misconceptions are corrected and some of the abuses of the FBI are exposed.

First line

THE DYING MAN WAS sprawled facedown at the mouth of the alley, his feet still on the curb.

Details

  • Title Baby Face Nelson: Portrait of a Public Enemy
  • Author Steven Nickel; William J. Helmer
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Edition First Edition; F
  • Pages 480
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Cumberland House Publishing, Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.A.
  • Date 2002-06-01
  • ISBN 9781581822724 / 1581822723
  • Weight 1.91 lbs (0.87 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.48 x 6.65 x 1.52 in (24.08 x 16.89 x 3.86 cm)
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 1900-1949
  • Library of Congress subjects Criminals - Middle West, Nelson, Baby Face
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2002004675
  • Dewey Decimal Code B
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Baby Face Nelson: Portrait of a Public Enemy
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by Steven Nickel, William J Helmer

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
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