New York City is subsumed in arctic winds, dark nights, and white lights, its life unfolds, for it is an extraordinary hive of the imagination, the greatest house ever built, and nothing exists that can check its vitality. One night in winter, Peter Lake--orphan and master-mechanic, attempts to rob a fortress-like mansion on the Upper West Side.

Though he thinks hte house is empty, the daughter of the house is home. Thus begins the love between Peter Lake, a middle-aged Irish burglar, and Beverly Penn, a young girl, who is dying.

Peter Lake, a simple, uneducated man, because of a love that, at first he does not fully understand, is driven to stop time and bring back the dead. His great struggle, in a city ever alight with its own energy and beseiged by unprecedented winters, is one of the most beautiful and extraordinary stories of American literature.

In this bestseller, Helprin takes readers on a journey to New York of the Belle Epoque. "This novel . . . is a gifted writer's love affair with the language" (Newsday).

MARK HELPRIN has written for the Atlantic Monthly, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, and the New York Times, among many other publications. His collection The Pacific and Other Stories was published in the fall of 2004. He lives in Virginia.

I. THE CITY

A White Horse Escapes 3

The Ferry Burns in Morning Cold 10

Pearly Soames 20

Peter Lake Hangs from a Star 40

Beverly 95

A Goddess in the Bath 110

On the Marsh 130

Lake of the Coheeries 143

The Hospital in Printing House Square 173

Aceldama 191

II. FOUR GATES TO THE CITY

Four Gates to the City 219

Lake of the Coheeries 221

In the Drifts 264

A New Life 347

Hell Gate 370

III. THE SUN...AND THE GHOST

Nothing Is Random 401

Peter Lake Returns 403

The Sun... 418

...and The Ghost 438

An Early Summer Dinner at Petipas 445

The Machine Age 456

IV. A GOLDEN AGE

A Very Short History of the Clouds 505

Battery Bridge 507

White Horse and Dark Horse 544

The White Dog of Afghanistan 579

Abysmillard Redux 591

Ex Machina 606

For the Soldiers and Sailors of Chelsea 641

The City Alight 666

A Golden Age 697

epilogue 747