David Warren Maurer fu un eminente linguista i cui studi si concentrarono sul linguaggio del sottobosco criminale americano. Per decenni, si immerse negli argot specializzati e nelle pratiche di varie sottoculture, dai criminali ai tossicodipendenti fino ai contrabbandieri di alcolici. La sua ricerca, alimentata da un'ampia corrispondenza e interviste con centinaia di individui ai margini della società, illuminò i loro unici schemi comunicativi e visioni del mondo. L'eredità di Maurer risiede nella sua meticolosa documentazione e acuta analisi degli strati linguistici nascosti che plasmano le identità e le operazioni di queste comunità emarginate.
When the first American tax on distilled spirits was established in 1791, violence broke out in Pennsylvania. The resulting Whiskey Rebellion sent hundreds of families down the Ohio River by flatboat, stills on board, to settle anew in the fertile bottomlands of Kentucky.
'Of all the gifters, the confidence man is the aristocrat, ' wrote David Maurer, a proposition he definitively proved in The Big Con. A professor of linguistics who specialised in underworld argot, Maurer won the trust of hundreds of swindlers. They let him in on not simply their language, but their folkwrys and the astonishingly complex and elaborate schemes whereby unsuspecting marks, hooked by their own greed and dishonesty were 'taken off' - i. e. , cheated - of thousands upon thousands of dollars. The products of amazing ingenuity, crack timing and attention to every last detail, these 'big cons', as thoroughly scripted and rehearsed as any Hollywood production, richly deserve Maurer's description as 'the most effective swindling device which man has ever invented. ' The Big Con is a treasure trove of American lingo (the write, the rag, the pay-off, ropers, shills, the cold poke and the convincer) and indeliable characters (Yellow Kid Weil, Barney the Patch, the Seldom-Seen Kid, Limehouse Chappie and Larry the Lug). First published in 1940, The Big Con makes compelling reading whilst being the most authentic and utterly authoritative study on the con artist and his game.