A Child of the Jago: A Novel Set in the London Slums in the 1890s (An Academy Victorian Classic, reprint of the 1897 Third edition) - Softcover

Arthur Morrison

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0897333926 ISBN 13: 9780897333924

Publisher: Academy Chicago Publishers, 2005

Synopsis

This novel, first published in 1896, is the story of Dick Perrot, born and bred in the Jago; but it is also a brilliant portrait of the community. The Jago is a London slum where crime and violence are the only way of life, and from which there is no escape for the inhabitants. Only the characters themselves are fictional: Morrison's descriptions of the fearful physical conditions are based directly on what he saw. He conjures up an extraordinarily vivid picture of a world which, even as he wrote, was about to vanish in one of the first of the slum clearance schemes.

About this title

From the Publisher:

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From the Back Cover:

“Learn to read and write, learn all you can, learn cunning, spare nobody and stop at nothing. ... Do your devilmost ... for the Jago’s got you!” Dicky Perrott, growing up in the notoriously criminal enclave of the Jago, listens and learns. Compelled by his family’s circumstances to provide for his mother and siblings, he sharpens his skills as a boy thief. Along the way, he navigates the Jago’s topsy-turvy ethics, vacillating between the rival messages of his mentors, a devious local fence and a righteous slum priest. Relentless in its bleakness and violence, A Child of the Jago captures the desperate struggle for survival in 1890s East London.

This Broadview Edition provides the literary, socio-historical, and philosophical contexts vital to readers’ understanding and appreciation of the novel. Historical appendices include materials on eugenics, hooliganism, women’s sweated labor, cultural philanthropy, and the debate over the novel’s accuracy.

About this edition

• Publisher: Academy Chicago Publishers
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0897333926
• ISBN 13: 9780897333924
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 164