A Child of the Jago

A Child of the Jago is London-born journalist Arthur Morrisons best known novel. It was first published in November 1896 and is set in a fictional East End slum known as the Jago, which Morrison based a real district called the Old Nichol. The novel recounts the brief life of Dicky Perrott, who is at heart full of humane instinct but his environment ensures his down fall. The Perrott family, and their friends and enemies, must struggle for their very survival in the harsh environment they live within. Tension and desperation amid the crime and roughness is constant in the overcrowded slums of the East End, with fortune hard to come by and danger ever present. The author, who rejected the label realist, doesnt minimize the violence of the community and A Child of the Jago is an exciting tale indeed.

Cunning Murrell

Arthur Morrison

Spirit of Old Essex draws together Arthur Morrisons lost treasure of a novel Cunning Murrell, a jocular tale of witchcraft, old salts, pugilists, smuggling and country life long lost, together with additional background information on Morrisons research and inspiration. Cunning Murrell is a fictionalized biography of James Murrell, also known as Cunning Murrell, who was an English cunning man, or professional folk magician. In this capacity, he reportedly employed magical means to aid in healing both humans and animals, exorcising malevolent spirits, countering witches, and restoring lost or stolen property to its owner.

Divers Vanities

Arthur Morrison

Arthur Morrison, who was English novelist, short story writer and journalist, wrote pioneering realistic narratives about working-class life in Londons East End. He is also celebrated for his exciting mystery stories, featuring the detective Martin Hewitt, who served as a natural successor to Sherlock Holmes. This comprehensive book presents Morrisons collection of short stories. The collection includes: Chance of the Game, Spottos Reclamation, A Dead Un, The Disorder of the Bath, His Talk of Bricks, Teacher and Taught, A Blot on St. Basil, The Torn Heart and others. Each story features a fascinating look at life in the 20th century, and even includes some action along the way.

Fiddle oDreams and More

Arthur Morrison

Morrisons literary reputation is mostly based on his realistic novels and short stories about slum life in London. In addition, he wrote detective fiction that is openly derivative of Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes stories. Possessed with a wide and free-ranging curiosity, Morrison wrote both fiction and nonfiction works on diverse subjects, from Japanese art to occultism, and participated in English literary life well into World War II. In 1930 Arthur Morrison moved to Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire. In 1933 he published the short story collection Fiddle o Dreams and More. This collection of mystery and detective fiction contains: Billy Blenkins Radium, Frenzied Finance, Infantry at the Double, Sports of Mugby, The Thing in the Upper Room and others. Highly recommended!

Green Ginger

Arthur Morrison

Green Ginger is one of the humorous story from mixed collection of sixteen short stories by the author of the Martin Hewitt, Investigator series. Collects several mysteries, including a Cunning Murrell tale, also The Seller of Hate, a deal-with-the-Devil story, and The Chamber of Light, a humorous ghost story of psychic investigator driving the poor spectres to distraction. The stories are well written and definitely a product of their time and place. Arthur George Morrison, a famous English writer, journalist and author of mystery genre, is also known for his realistic novels and stories about working-class life in Londons East End, A Child of the Jago being the best known.

Martin Hewitt, Investigator

Arthur Morrison

Martin Hewitt, Investigator is a collection of late Victorian short stories linked by the protagonist, Martin Hewitt. This book chronicles seven of Hewitts cases, and gave rise to his reputation as Englands second-best-detective. They are tales of impossible to solve crimes that Hewitt was able to crack by piecing together a few clues where the police detectives had failed. Like the Holmes stories, the author did not want the detective to talk about his own cases in the first person, so he created a sidekick who does the writing, the journalist Brett. Unlike Holmes, however, Martin Hewitt runs an investigative business, is a very personable gentleman, works well with the police force and easily makes friends. Novel and imaginative in subject matter, meticulously plotted, and smoothly written, these stories will captivate mystery lovers.

Tales of Mean Streets

Arthur Morrison

Tales of Mean Streets, published in 1894, is a collection of short stories describing the appalling conditions that many working people endured. These stories are a brilliant evocation of a narrow, close-knit community, that of the streets of Londons East End. Having lived and worked there, he author knew that East Enders were not a race apart, but ordinary men and women, scraping by perhaps, but neither criminals nor paupers. Here Arthur Morrison chronicles their adventures and misadventures, their wooings and their funerals, with sympathy, humor and a sense of both the tragedies and the comedies to be found in the mean streets. One of tales, Lizerunt, was condemned for depicting all too clearly the victimization and degradation of women.

The Adventures of Martin Hewitt

Arthur Morrison

Who else could have so quickly connected a partial sheet of music wrapped around a rock and tossed through a sitting room window with an infamous decades-old robbery? Would anyone else have taken seriously the fears of an eccentric old woman who swore thieves were after her most prized possession: a snuffbox fashioned from the actual wood of Noahs Ark? Englands greatest crime-solver Martin Hewitt uses his superior intellect and genial charm to unmask thieves, murderers, and dangerous fanatics. The Adventures of Martin Hewitt stories are well written with the usual detective story tropes a sidekick narrator, baffled police, all the clues within the narrative, the announcement followed by the detective explaining his brilliance.

The Chronicles of Martin Hewitt

Arthur Morrison

Second collection of detective fiction concerning Martin Hewitt, a famous private detective whose methods closely resemble those of Sherlock Holmes. The anthology is composed of six short stories, mysteries investigated by the investigator Martin Hewitt, and narrated by his friend, Colonel Brett. An artists work is vindictively vandalized, and the artist is found murdered in his smoking room. Gold bullion totaling L10,000 mysteriously vanishes from the ill-fated steamship Nicobar as it sinks en route to Plymouth. A clerk disappears from a large London bank along with a rather substantial amount of the companys money. A lunatic Frenchman, discovered beaten and bloody in the street, screams in terror when offered a loaf of bread. The detective Martin Hewitt is on the case.

The Dorrington Deed Box

Arthur Morrison

English writer Morrison chronicles the exploits of Horace Dorrington, a raconteur and scoundrel who hails from a very different social strata than the typical Victorian detective. Mr. Dorrington himself is a marvelous creation, charming and with no moral scruples whatsoever, clever, and entirely devoted to achieving as great a profit for himself as possible if this involves doing some honest detection, that is fine if it involved extorting the criminal instead of turning him over to the police, no problem, if it involves having the client murdered well, some things cant be helped. There are six short stories in this collection which begins with The Narrative of Mr. James Rigby. Definitely fun and recommended for readers who want to explore the darker side of Victorian detective stories.

The Green Eye of Goona

Arthur Morrison

Morrisons most popular books are probably his detective stories, featuring Martin Hewitt, a methodical investigator, who uses his ability to be thoroughly at home among any and every class of people to invite confidences in gathering evidence. Martin Hewitt stories are similar in style to those of Conan Doyle, cleverly plotted and very amusing. Morrison made two other forays into the detective field, the first: The Dorrington Deed-Box, which introduces the quasi-criminal antihero Dorrington, and The Green Eye of Goona, a pastiche of Wilkie Collinss The Moon-Stone. The Green Eye of Goona novel is set in India. Unusual and imaginative in subject matter, meticulously plotted, and smoothly written, this story will captivate mystery lovers.

The Hole in the Wall

Arthur Morrison

Morrison, a novelist and short-story writer, is most often remembered for a series featuring the detective Martin Hewitt, but before that, he wrote several grim and violent books about life in the London slums. The Hole in the Wall is one of the most gripping adventure stories ever written. Stephen Kemp goes to live with his mysterious grandfather after his mothers death, and is gradually drawn into the seedy world which Captain Nat Kemp inhabits. The author brilliantly conveys the childs sharp observation of all that goes on around him, and builds up portrait of the picaresque life of the East End of London at the turn of the 20th century with humanity and humor he himself may have known as a boy. It is considered a classic of English story-telling and worth a read.

The Red Triangle

Arthur Morrison

Fourth and last collection of detective fiction featuring Martin Hewitt, a famous private detective whose methods closely resemble those of Sherlock Holmes. The plot lines of all six linked sensation stories in this collection center on the mystery of the Red Triangle, a group of villains known only from the Red Triangle left stamped on the heads of their victims, and the actions of Martin Hewitt and his narrator, esteemed journalist Mr. Brett, in bringing the members of that group to justice. This work includes the following stories: The affair of Samuels diamonds, The case of Mr. Jacob Mason, The case of the Lever Key, The case of the burnt barn, The case of the Admiralty code and The adventure of Channel Marsh.

To London Town

Arthur Morrison

A widow and her two children struggle to make ends meet in East London after their grandfather and provider is killed. First they are threatened by a sponging uncle and his friend Mr. Butson, a cadger of suppers, then by their new landlord Mr. Dunkin, a man who exudes a wealth of sympathy, a wealth that Mr. Dunkin squandered with no restraint but this, that it carried no other sort of wealth with it. To London Town novel was intended to provide a picture of working-class life in the East End of London at the end of the nineteenth century. Arthur Morrison, (1863-1945), English writer noted for realist novels and short stories describing slum life in Londons East End at the end of the Victorian era. A Child of the Jago and To London Town completed this East End trilogy.

Zig-Zags at the Zoo

Arthur Morrison

Arthur Morrison was a prolific journalist and author best known for his detective fiction that featured the lawyer-detective Martin Hewitt, who was the most successful rival to Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes. His realistic novels and stories are sober in tone, but the characters are portrayed with a Dickensian colorfulness. His attitude toward the people he described was paternalist, rather than radical, and he opposed socialism and the trades-union movement. This was one of a series of humorous articles about the different types of animals at London Zoo, such as a bear, lion, camel, simian, and fish, with the overall title Zig-Zags at the Zoo; all were profusely illustrated with cartoons. Zig Zags at the Zoo was a lighthearted illustrated feature that appeared in Londons Strand Magazine in the 1890s.