On 23 August 1858, Ten Nights in A Barroom opened at the National Theatre in New York City. The play was based on Timothy Shay Arthur’s 1854 novel Ten Nights in a Barroom and What I Saw There. Several film versions were also made.

Arthur became associated with the temperance movement when he published Six Nights with the Washingtonians in 1842. This book—and the series of articles on which it was based—helped publicize the Washingtonian Society, a precursor of Alcoholics Anonymous. AA literature specifically mentions the Washingtonians.

Ten Nights in a Barroom and What I Saw There is Arthur’s most famous book. The story is told from the point of view of a narrator who spends ten evenings over the course of several years boarding at the inn/tavern when he is in town on business. During that time, he watches the tavern owner and his son deteriorate because of drink.

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A less well known temperance novel was written by Walt Whitman was published the same year as was Ten Nights in a Barroom. Later, Whitman would make disparaging comments about his Franklin Evans; or, the Inebriate and claim that he was actually drunk while writing it.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD

Photo Caption: Image from first edition of Ten Nights in a Barroom and What I Saw There (1943).