Tales of Mean Streets

by Arthur Morrison and H. L.(preface) Morrison, Arthur; Mencken

Book Overview

Short stories of the East End: at one time the slimy underbelly of London. The stories vary in style: from the gritty, no-holds-barred tale of Lizerunt, to the light humor of That Brute Simmons. "The... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 154724495X
• ISBN13: 9781547244959
• Release Date: June 2017
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 70 Pages
• Weight: 0.23 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The Original Mean Streets

"Down these mean streets a man must go," wrote Raymond Chandler on the subject of the detective novel. Few knew he was paying tribute to another writer, now almost forgotten, who wrote about the mean streets of London's Docks around 1900. In TALES OF MEAN STREETS, CHILD OF THE JAGO, and THE HOLE IN THE WALL, Arthur Morrison wrote about the world into which he was born. (Interestingly, he also wrote some great detective novels at the same time that Doyle was writing his Sherlock Holmes stories.) Some of the stories in TALES OF MEAN STREETS seem sentimental today: There is no lurid sex, the cursing is subject to the "code" of Queen Victoria's day, and much of the violence takes place off stage. If you accept the givens of that day, you will enjoy Morrison; and you will see how the American detective novel and the film noir owe far more to Morrison than to Conan Doyle or anyone else. Morrison deserved to be remembered and honored.