Prohibition. Politics. Corruption. Alcohol was not illegal to drink. It was just illegal to manufacture, sell, or transport. Various organized criminal enterprises saw fit to illegally manufacture, sell, and transport alcohol to those who wanted it. 1920. Money. Politics. Corruption. This is Boardwalk Empire.

Like other period television shows, Boardwalk Empire has threads of historical fact running through its core. Steve Buscemi's character "Nucky" Thompson is based on Enoch "Nucky" Johnson. There's Al Capone and Warren G. Harding. There's Arnold Rothstein and the Black Sox scandal. There's the Women's Suffrage Movement. The writers have a wealth of historical material to work with. Prohibition and the early 1920s offer countless events and a host of characters, both upstanding and questionable, stretching along the east coast from Atlantic City to New York City and west to Chicago. The story opportunities are endless.

Boardwalk Empire makes it easy to lose yourself in the roaring twenties. All of that wonderful music, the set design, the costumes, the dialogue. But it's more than the apparent and obvious details such as these. Sometimes it's the little things that make all the difference, something minimal and seemingly insignificant that adds volumes to a show's authenticity. Something like a book.

The writers of Boardwalk Empire certainly have a lot of classic literature to work with to add layers to a character's personality. Whether it's for character development or to help set the mood for a specific scene, whether it's a title that appears in multiple episodes or it's only a brief reference to a poem or genre, you can always count on a good book.

Below is a list of books that have appeared in Boardwalk Empire. What other books do you imagine Nucky reading? How about Margaret Schroeder? Jimmy Darmody? Agent Nelson Van Alden? Al Capone? At the bottom is a list of various other books that were published in the five years leading up to prohibition. Most all of the books listed below are available for free as eBooks via Google Books and Project Gutenberg so if you can't find the titles at your local library try searching online. All of these and more would have very likely been on the bookshelves of Boardwalk Empire.

Season 2

Episode 12 - "To the Lost"

Julius Caesar / William Shakespeare

(click here for details) 

Episode 11 - "Under God's Power She Flourishes"

The Revenger's Tragedy / Cyril Tourneur

(click here for details) 

The White Devil / John Webster

Episode 10 - "Georgia Peaches"

The Tempest / William Shakespeare

(click here for details) 

Episode 9- "Battle of the Century"

Pretty Robins: Bright Stories for Little Folks

Episode 8 - "Two Boats and a Lifeguard"

The author Louise Bryant

Episode 7 - "Peg of Old"

The Girl, a Horse, and a Dog / Francis Lynde

Episode 6 - "The Age of Reason"

The Bible

Sayings, Proverbs, Maxims, and Mottoes / C.F. Schutz

(click here for details)

Young People's Illustrated Bible History

The Bible

Episode 4 - "What Does the Bee Do?"

Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book / Christina Rossetti

(for text to the poem see page 113 of the free eBook)

Episode 3 - "A Dangerous Maid"

The Lost Girl / D.H. Lawrence

Frankenstein / Mary Shelley (click here for details) 

Episode 2 - "Ourselves Alone"

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer / Mark Twain

(click here for details)

(click here and here for more images from this scene)

 David Copperfield / Charles Dickens

Season 1

Episode 12 - "A Return to Normalcy"

The Holy Bible

The Holy Bible

Episode 11 - "Paris Green"

"Halloween" / Robert Burns

The Holy Bible

Episode 10 - "The Emerald City"

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz / L. Frank Baum

(click here and here for more images from this scene)

Episode 9 - "Belle Femme"

The Road to Oz / L. Frank Baum

(click here for another image from this scene)

Episode 7 - "Home"

The Tin Solider / Temple Baily

Tom Swift and His Undersea Search / Victor Appleton

Episode 6 - "Family Limitation"

Free Air / Sinclair Lewis

(click here for another image from this scene)

Episode 5 - "Nights in Ballygran"

Public Speaking and Influencing Men in Business / Dale Carnegie

Episode 4 - "Anastasia"

Free Air / Sinclair Lewis

Episode 3 - "Broadway Limited"

Free Air / Sinclair Lewis

Episode 2 - "The Ivory Tower"

The Ivory Tower / Henry James

What else would be on the bookshelves of Boardwalk Empire? 

1916

• Windy McPherson's Son / Sherwood Anderson
• Rinkitink in Oz / L. Frank Baum
• Mountain Interval / Robert Frost
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man / James Joyce
• You Know Me Al / Ring Lardner
  

1917

• A Princess of Mars / Edgar Rice Burroughs
• The Shadow-Line / Joseph Conrad
• His Last Bow / Arthur Conan Doyle
• Summer / Edith Wharton
• Piccadilly Jim / P. G. Wodehouse
• The Wild Swans at Coole, Other Verses and a Play in Verse / W. B. Yeats

1918

• My Ántonia / Willa Cather
• The Magnificent Ambersons / Booth Tarkington
• The Return of the Soldier / Rebecca West
• The Marne / Edith Wharton

1919

• Winesburg, Ohio / Sherwood Anderson
• The Magic of Oz / L. Frank Baum
• Jungle Tales of Tarzan / Edgar Rice Burroughs
• Demian / Hermann Hesse
• The Moon and Sixpence / W. Somerset Maugham
• Night and Day / Virginia Woolf

1920

• The Mysterious Affair at Styles / Agatha Christie
• This Side Of Paradise / F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Women in Love / D. H. Lawrence
• Main Street / Sinclair Lewis
• The Story of Doctor Dolittle / Hugh Lofting
• The Age of Innocence / Edith Wharton