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Tim & Pistol #1
The Boy and the Monkey
Set in the streets of London, the story follows the hopes and aspirations of young Tim and his pet monkey, Pistol, as they use their wits to get money out of rich folk. Their apparent success is brought to a halt one disastrous foggy evening , and Tim and Pistol are led off to Newgate Gaol...
44 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1969
About the author
Leon Garfield
123 books50 followersLeon Garfield FRSL (14 July 1921 – 2 June 1996) was a British writer of fiction. He is best known for children's historical novels, though he also wrote for adults. He wrote more than thirty books and scripted Shakespeare: The Animated Tales for television.
Garfield attended Brighton Grammar School (1932-1938) and went on to study art at Regent Street Polytechnic, but his studies were interrupted first by lack of funds for fees, then by the outbreak of World War II. He married Lena Leah Davies in April, 1941, at Golders Green Synagogue but they separated after only a few months. For his service in the war he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. While posted in Belgium he met Vivien Alcock, then an ambulance driver, who would go on to become his second wife (in 1948) and a well-known children's author. She would also greatly influence Garfield's writing, giving him suggestions for his writing, including the original idea for Smith. After the war Garfield worked as a biochemical laboratory technician at the Whittington Hospital in Islington, writing in his spare time until the 1960s, when he was successful enough to write full-time. In 1964, the couple adopted a baby girl, called Jane after Jane Austen, a favourite writer of both parents.
Garfield wrote his first book, the pirate novel Jack Holborn, for adult readers but a Constable & Co. editor saw its potential as a children's novel and persuaded him to adapt it for a younger audience. In that form it was published by Constable in 1964. His second book, Devil-in-the-Fog (1966), won the first annual Guardian Prize and was serialised for television, as were several later works (below). Devil was the first of several historical adventure novels, typically set late in the eighteenth century and featuring a character of humble origins (in this case a boy from a family of traveling actors) pushed into the midst of a threatening intrigue. Another was Smith (1967), with the eponymous hero a young pickpocket accepted into a wealthy household; it won the Phoenix Award in 1987. Yet another was Black Jack (1968), in which a young apprentice is forced by accident and his conscience to accompany a murderous criminal.
In 1970, Garfield's work started to move in new directions with The God Beneath the Sea, a re-telling of numerous Greek myths in one narrative, written by Garfield and Edward Blishen and illustrated by Charles Keeping. It won the annual Carnegie Medal for British children's books. Garfield, Blishen, and Keeping collaborated again on a sequel, The Golden Shadow (1973). The Drummer Boy (1970) was another adventure story, but concerned more with a central moral problem, and apparently aimed at somewhat older readers, a trend continued in The Prisoners of September (1975) republished in 1989 by Lions Tracks, under the title Revolution!, The Pleasure Garden (1976) and The Confidence Man (1978). The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris (1972) was a black comedy in which two boys decide to test the plausibility of Romulus and Remus using one of the boys' baby sister. Most notable at the time was a series of linked long short stories about apprentices, published separately between 1976 and 1978, and then as a collection, The Apprentices. The more adult themed books of the mid-1970s met with a mixed reception and Garfield returned to the model of his earlier books with John Diamond, which won a Whitbread Award in 1980, and The December Rose (1986). In 1980 he also wrote an ending for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished at the 1870 death of Dickens, an author who had been a major influence on Garfield's own style.
He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1985. On 2 June 1996 he died of cancer at the Whittington Hospital, where he had once worked.
Garfield attended Brighton Grammar School (1932-1938) and went on to study art at Regent Street Polytechnic, but his studies were interrupted first by lack of funds for fees, then by the outbreak of World War II. He married Lena Leah Davies in April, 1941, at Golders Green Synagogue but they separated after only a few months. For his service in the war he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. While posted in Belgium he met Vivien Alcock, then an ambulance driver, who would go on to become his second wife (in 1948) and a well-known children's author. She would also greatly influence Garfield's writing, giving him suggestions for his writing, including the original idea for Smith. After the war Garfield worked as a biochemical laboratory technician at the Whittington Hospital in Islington, writing in his spare time until the 1960s, when he was successful enough to write full-time. In 1964, the couple adopted a baby girl, called Jane after Jane Austen, a favourite writer of both parents.
Garfield wrote his first book, the pirate novel Jack Holborn, for adult readers but a Constable & Co. editor saw its potential as a children's novel and persuaded him to adapt it for a younger audience. In that form it was published by Constable in 1964. His second book, Devil-in-the-Fog (1966), won the first annual Guardian Prize and was serialised for television, as were several later works (below). Devil was the first of several historical adventure novels, typically set late in the eighteenth century and featuring a character of humble origins (in this case a boy from a family of traveling actors) pushed into the midst of a threatening intrigue. Another was Smith (1967), with the eponymous hero a young pickpocket accepted into a wealthy household; it won the Phoenix Award in 1987. Yet another was Black Jack (1968), in which a young apprentice is forced by accident and his conscience to accompany a murderous criminal.
In 1970, Garfield's work started to move in new directions with The God Beneath the Sea, a re-telling of numerous Greek myths in one narrative, written by Garfield and Edward Blishen and illustrated by Charles Keeping. It won the annual Carnegie Medal for British children's books. Garfield, Blishen, and Keeping collaborated again on a sequel, The Golden Shadow (1973). The Drummer Boy (1970) was another adventure story, but concerned more with a central moral problem, and apparently aimed at somewhat older readers, a trend continued in The Prisoners of September (1975) republished in 1989 by Lions Tracks, under the title Revolution!, The Pleasure Garden (1976) and The Confidence Man (1978). The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris (1972) was a black comedy in which two boys decide to test the plausibility of Romulus and Remus using one of the boys' baby sister. Most notable at the time was a series of linked long short stories about apprentices, published separately between 1976 and 1978, and then as a collection, The Apprentices. The more adult themed books of the mid-1970s met with a mixed reception and Garfield returned to the model of his earlier books with John Diamond, which won a Whitbread Award in 1980, and The December Rose (1986). In 1980 he also wrote an ending for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished at the 1870 death of Dickens, an author who had been a major influence on Garfield's own style.
He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1985. On 2 June 1996 he died of cancer at the Whittington Hospital, where he had once worked.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 26, 2022
Curious book (actually an omnibus of three books) - while very short, just three chapters each, these are not simplified in language, writing style, emotional content, or anything else.
April 12, 2020
The Boy and the Monkey would certainly appear to be a Garfield book for younger children. As a chapter book, it only has two. However, this is still Leon Garfield and he’s not even writing in his Fair’s Fair younger children’s style, he makes a joke about the young protagonist not being a foundling but a lostling.
The main character is Tim and his monkey is called Pistol, they are the main characters in a trilogy of books (and I’ve managed to get the first and last of them). Tim is eleven and has a single ability, looking sad. He uses this skill to sell Pistol to people and Pistol, having “seen much of the world and none of it wonderfully honest” returns to Tim, having stolen something from the house.
This goes fine until Pistol returns with an astonishingly expensive wedding ring and the two of them are arrested, taken to Newgate and await trial. The tension is built up brilliantly, especially considering how short the book is. The Foreman of the jury is a tough man who encourages them to be utterly prepared to kill people and the judge is a tough man in a large wig which makes him look like a ‘villainous old sheep’. The Judge and Jury immediately start a battle of wills which leads to that most peculiar of things, a fair trial.
“Gentlemen were convicted and beggars were freed, with no regard to anything but the evidence.”
The ending is a surprise and what I like is it uses a genuine historical quirk to solve its problem.
The main character is Tim and his monkey is called Pistol, they are the main characters in a trilogy of books (and I’ve managed to get the first and last of them). Tim is eleven and has a single ability, looking sad. He uses this skill to sell Pistol to people and Pistol, having “seen much of the world and none of it wonderfully honest” returns to Tim, having stolen something from the house.
This goes fine until Pistol returns with an astonishingly expensive wedding ring and the two of them are arrested, taken to Newgate and await trial. The tension is built up brilliantly, especially considering how short the book is. The Foreman of the jury is a tough man who encourages them to be utterly prepared to kill people and the judge is a tough man in a large wig which makes him look like a ‘villainous old sheep’. The Judge and Jury immediately start a battle of wills which leads to that most peculiar of things, a fair trial.
“Gentlemen were convicted and beggars were freed, with no regard to anything but the evidence.”
The ending is a surprise and what I like is it uses a genuine historical quirk to solve its problem.
February 20, 2018
This was a short story
The story was fine. Garfield's humour and language were spot on, but it was a very short short story - not what I was expecting
The story was fine. Garfield's humour and language were spot on, but it was a very short short story - not what I was expecting
September 26, 2018
Leon Garfield writes so beautifully
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews