Thomas Burke (1)Reseñas

Non-rhyming poetry book. I like the little scenes it paints of life in Limehouse and really liked it at first, so much so that it didn't quite live up to my expectations later. Still decent though.

A series of horrific tales set in London's limehouse area. Nasty but moving stuff. Definitely to be avoided by those of a sensitive nature.

This book, first published in 1944, and only to be sold to 'men and women in the uniforms of the Commonwealth, Empire, United States and other Allied Forces now visiting this country', page 34, begins with a sentence that is not out of place in British Brexit days: 'The English have for centuries been a puzzle to the people of other countries', page 5.

Thomas Burke’s Night-Pieces is an undeservedly obscure anthology first published in 1935, and only recently republished by Valancourt Books. Burke was remarkably well attuned to the streets of London, which provide a solid platform for many of these eighteen tales. This is indeed a fine collection of stylish and intriguing short stories in the slice of life, weird fiction, and crime genres. Burke is particularly adept at creating darkly atmospheric stories of dread and fear.

▪Miracle in Suburbia - An elderly man offers protection from harm if a young acquaintance performs a theft of an item previously stolen.
▪Yesterday Street - Burke deftly taps into the wistfully nostalgic psyche of many a middle-aged man, as Dominic eerily returns to his childhood neighborhood.
▪Funspot - A man who regularly traverses across the oddly named Funspot Street obsesses over ironically greusome things that could occur there.
▪Uncle Ezekiel's Long Sight - Uncle Ezekiel, otherwise a doddering "domestic pest", possesses an uncanny ability to see into the future.
▪The Horrible God - Mr Drinkwater, a collector of native bric-a-brac, purchases an idol, and subsequently receives messages portending that the idol will wreak a terrible vengeance.
▪Father and Son - The true nature of the relationship is seen after a father cuts off his son’s allowance.
▪Johnson Looked Back - A vivid, in-your-face profile of undiluted fear from first sentence to last. Stunningly breathtaking and relentless!
▪Two Gentlemen - A short but instructive study of human nature.
▪The Black Courtyard - A propulsive tale of encroaching fear, as Perrace is haunted by a particular courtyard: "an organism of blackness whose tendrils almost throttled the breath."
▪The Gracious Ghosts - Burke delivers a novel ghost story here; why the two appear and then disappear marks an interesting twist in the genre.
▪Jack Wapping - A day in the (supremely discontented, but resignedly contented) life of a workingman.
▪One Hundred Pounds - That being the amount of an inheritance Granpa Ben has received, and promised eventually to young Bertie, the one person he trusts.
▪The Man Who Lost His Head - In a midlife crisis moment, Peter Smothe wishes for a new life, and sets off to find it.
▪Murder Under the Crooked Spire - The mystery of this murder lies not in whodunit, but rather how was the murderer found out. And for good measure, Burke poses one last question which the reader alone must deduce.
▪The Lonely Inn - A pair of gents new to the area happen upon a dilapidated inn, where the patrons act strangely suspicious of them.
▪The Watcher - A short but powerful tale of a small-time burglar who knows where the loot is kept in his target, a shabby little shop.
▪Events at Wayless-Wagtail - A clairvoyant seeks to intervene and avert a future murder.
▪The Hollow Man - A man compelled by an unseen force travels from Africa to London for an extended visit to an old friend from fifteen years past.

This collection, from 1916, is long on atmosphere and definitely immerses you in the neighborhoods surrounding the London docks, where strange characters of all races, from poor Londoners to itinerant sailors from around the world, to the local Chinese community mix together with strange, often tragic results. A product of its time, the book includes some offensive racial stereotypes and language, but the most despicable characters include native- and foreign-born devils. It is difficult to put myself in a 1916 frame of mind to fully understand the impression this book produced on its readers then, but its combination of horrors and sentimental stories still works quite well thanks to its author's skill at working in various dialects and slang without losing readability. I'm not sure when I will get around to it, but Burke is definitely an old author worth reading.½