Tales of Mean Streets

These stories are a brilliant evocation of a narrow, close-knit community, that of the streets of London's East End. First published in 1894, Arthur Morrison prefaced his collection with a list of the common misconceptions about the East End of his day, all of which he felt ignored the human element. Having lived and worked there, he knew that East Enders were not a race apart, but ordinary men and women, scraping by perhaps, but neither criminals nor paupers. Here he chronicles their adventures and misadventures, their wooings and their funerals, with sympathy, humour and a sense of both the tragedies and the comedies to be found in the 'mean streets', from Lizerunt's disastrous marriage to Scuddy Lond's plausible but imperfect conversion and Squire Napper's quickly dispersed fortune.