The Magnificent Idler,  the story of Walt Whitman This biographical novel about Walt Whitman includes a chapter about Pfaff's during its heyday in the early 1860s right as the Civil War began (chapter 15, pages 197-210) and a brief mention of Whitman's post-war return to Pfaff's in the 1880s (295-6). Rogers's ability to intersperse historical fact with fictionalized dialogue makes for interesting (if not always reliable) reading.