author
J. H. (Jonathan Harrington) Green
b. 1812
A professional gambler turned outspoken reformer, this 19th-century writer drew on hard experience to expose the tricks, temptations, and damage of gambling. His books mix confession, warning, and social critique in a voice shaped by the underworld he once knew firsthand.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Ohio in the early 1810s, Jonathan Harrington Green became known as a skilled card player and gambler in the United States. After years in that world, he left gambling in the 1840s and remade himself as a public critic of the trade.
Green wrote a series of books about gambling, fraud, and urban vice, including works that presented themselves as cautionary accounts for young men and the general public. His writing stands out because it comes from direct experience: he explained cheating methods, the culture around betting, and the personal and social costs that followed.
Later accounts describe him not only as a writer, but also as a reformer who campaigned against illegal gambling. That mix of insider knowledge and moral warning gives his work a vivid place in 19th-century American nonfiction.