Heavyweight Champion of the World from 1919 to 1926, Jack Dempsey began his boxing career as a skinny boy of sixteen, riding the rails and participating in hastily staged saloon bouts against miners and lumberjacks. This biography charts the life and career of a man widely regarded as one of the toughest ever to enter the ring. Acknowledgments
xi
Prologue: Toledo, 1919
1(2)
I The Son of a Pipe Dream
3(15)
II A Trade for the Hungry
18(14)
III Marriages of Different Kinds
32(18)
IV Crucible Under the Sun
50(17)
V Champion: Roses and Thorns
67(33)
VI The Battle of the Century
100(30)
VII A Question of Morals
130(16)
VIII Shelby Under Attack
146(24)
IX The Greatest Fight Since the Silurian Age
170(23)
X The Nose Makes the Man
193(19)
XI And Ghastly Thro' the Drizzling Rain
212(24)
XII I'm Fighting for the Glory
236(28)
Epilogue: Everybody Give the Big Boy a Hand
264(7)
Postscript: Here's to Heroes
271(4)
Notes
275(22)
Bibliography
297(12)
Index
309
