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Limehouse Nights
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First published January 1, 1917
About the author
Thomas Burke
260 books13 followersHis first successful publication was Limehouse Nights (1916), a collection of stories centered around life in the poverty-stricken Limehouse district of London. Many of Burke's books feature the Chinese character Quong Lee as narrator.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_B...
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_B...
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May 24, 2023Well, I've discovered where I draw the line with Victorian and Edwardian pulp. It's about three miles in front of this thing, and it's drawn in nitric acid.
I would say on the whole this 'London pulp classic' is actually worse (grosser, nastier, makes you more depressed to be human) than The Way of a Man with a Maid which is remarkable, since that one falls under "would rather read AI-generated takes on Pride and Prejudice for the rest of my life", and yet here we are.
Please note we're not talking 'entertainingly awful', or 'regrettably a product of its time'. The phrase here is 'suppuratingly racist paedo shit, the fuck is wrong with you, Mr Burke'. Abort, abort.
I would say on the whole this 'London pulp classic' is actually worse (grosser, nastier, makes you more depressed to be human) than The Way of a Man with a Maid which is remarkable, since that one falls under "would rather read AI-generated takes on Pride and Prejudice for the rest of my life", and yet here we are.
Please note we're not talking 'entertainingly awful', or 'regrettably a product of its time'. The phrase here is 'suppuratingly racist paedo shit, the fuck is wrong with you, Mr Burke'. Abort, abort.
March 16, 2015
That I should find this so utterly vile surprised me, I'm not sure if the surprise came more for its intrinsic vileness or for my own reaction. As a lover of noir I've been trying to figure what separates this from the books I love because it is not its subjects or its violence, or the pulp aspect. It is partly the intensity of its racism; but at the same time I don't believe writers should shrink from exposing that in all of its ugliness.
I realised it come down to the author's stand. I realised what I love about noir is that the authors tend to write as though they share the same ground as their characters -- and many of them do. They do not consider themselves above or below, but as capable of the evil as well as the vaguely heroic acts that may be committed in the face of shared cynicism. This makes glimpses of integrity brighter as the world grinds on and grinds down and they explore the dark places, but if there is any judgment it is hard earned on people's actions, not skin colour or class position or an outdated set of morals.
This to me is noir at its best, the further a book departs from this, the less I like it. The constant treachery of women is, sadly, usually the biggest departure, but racism runs sexism a close second.
I wouldn't call Limehouse Nights noir, it is a prurient telling of tales of exoticised others, an exercise in orientalism. The line between 'us' and 'them' seems clear, and they are there for our amusement even though it is written with a false jocularity that seemingly takes their side. It surprised me, published in 1916, that it should contain such open references to drug-use, rape, interracial sex, pimping, child kidnapping and rape. It physically sickened me that all of it should be so obviously written to titillate, the racial lines drawn only to make their transgression amongst the lowest and criminal classes more exciting. Soft violent porn for the white, middle-class lads at the expense of Limehouse's population.
No wonder D.W. Griffiths of Birth of a Nation fame used a couple of these stories for his movie-making efforts (Broken Blossoms and Dream Streets).
I started reading it for its geography -- misled terribly by the blurb which you can find at the end of this post -- got through it a story at a time with distance in between, because I hate not finishing what I start and decided maybe I should try to understand a mentality that I won't be coming back to.
It constantly refers to place, names streets like Pennyfields, Poplar High Street and Blackwall over and over again, it circles around the Blue Lantern Pub. Yet despite this attempt at 'realism', these places still remains the exoticised docks of white imagination, and could be anywhere:
For all that he names the streets, ultimately you have no sense of place, only the sex and violence that takes place there:
Ah yes -- where the cold fatalism of the Orient meets the wistful dubiety of the West. The people living in these generic dock streets are as typecast, as empty, as much evoked in our imaginations entirely for our amusement -- this passage refers to a fourteen year old dance hall girl uncomfortably sexualised to the hilt:
She dies in childbirth at fifteen.
Not only are streets and people cut off (and happily so) from the rest of the city, but from the country and from nature itself, an island of unnatural connections and natural desires:
Over and over again it licks its lips at the thought of white women with Chinese and Indians and Africans -- but mostly the Chinese because this is Chinatown after all. They are loose women because this class knows no better. He mocks their drudgery -- more annoying because he has actually bothered to find out what it might consist of and this is one of the only places he describes it to the extent to which it is possible for him:
This gives too, one of his explanations for miscegenation I think -- girls that can get no one else can, by virtue of their skin colour, snare a foreign sailor.
Written always from a comfortable point of superiority, Burke manages to deride many a remarkable achievement -- in this case stripping everything away but the fact of a woman who speaks four languages to a greater or lesser extent, I wonder just how much in reality this interracial intercultural exchange took place? But this is not Burke's point, instead these passages give you a sense of the slime crawling across his pages:
Of everything -- and apparently people have some appreciation of his craft -- I really liked only one sentence, and you cannot separate it from the vileness that comes before (or after):
Nor can he claim ignorance for the casual insulting racism of his language:
Nor can he be forgiven for the terrible end of the boy described below -- betrayed by his own failings -- and Burke's inability to find a trace of empathy for his characters:
Nor does this phrase make any sense in describing that bright fourteen year old music hall singer that everyone loved until you start to vaguely think through the conflation of race and class and gender within others out there to amuse 'us':
To read the rest of this very long review click here.
I realised it come down to the author's stand. I realised what I love about noir is that the authors tend to write as though they share the same ground as their characters -- and many of them do. They do not consider themselves above or below, but as capable of the evil as well as the vaguely heroic acts that may be committed in the face of shared cynicism. This makes glimpses of integrity brighter as the world grinds on and grinds down and they explore the dark places, but if there is any judgment it is hard earned on people's actions, not skin colour or class position or an outdated set of morals.
This to me is noir at its best, the further a book departs from this, the less I like it. The constant treachery of women is, sadly, usually the biggest departure, but racism runs sexism a close second.
I wouldn't call Limehouse Nights noir, it is a prurient telling of tales of exoticised others, an exercise in orientalism. The line between 'us' and 'them' seems clear, and they are there for our amusement even though it is written with a false jocularity that seemingly takes their side. It surprised me, published in 1916, that it should contain such open references to drug-use, rape, interracial sex, pimping, child kidnapping and rape. It physically sickened me that all of it should be so obviously written to titillate, the racial lines drawn only to make their transgression amongst the lowest and criminal classes more exciting. Soft violent porn for the white, middle-class lads at the expense of Limehouse's population.
No wonder D.W. Griffiths of Birth of a Nation fame used a couple of these stories for his movie-making efforts (Broken Blossoms and Dream Streets).
I started reading it for its geography -- misled terribly by the blurb which you can find at the end of this post -- got through it a story at a time with distance in between, because I hate not finishing what I start and decided maybe I should try to understand a mentality that I won't be coming back to.
It constantly refers to place, names streets like Pennyfields, Poplar High Street and Blackwall over and over again, it circles around the Blue Lantern Pub. Yet despite this attempt at 'realism', these places still remains the exoticised docks of white imagination, and could be anywhere:
You know, perhaps, the East India Dock, which lies a little north of its big brother, the West India Dock: a place of savagely masculine character, evoking the brassy mood. By daytime a cold, nauseous light hangs about it; at night a devilish darkness settles upon it.
You know, perhaps, the fried-fish shops that punctuate every corner in the surrounding maze of streets, the "general" shops with their assorted rags, their broken iron, and their glum-faced basins of kitchen waste; and the lurid-seeming creatures that glide from nowhere into nothing--Arab, Lascar, Pacific Islander, Chinky, Hindoo, and so on, each carrying his own perfume. You know, too, the streets of plunging hoof and horn that cross and re-cross the waterways, the gaunt chimneys that stick their derisive tongues to the skies. You know the cobbly courts, the bestrewn alleys, through which at night gas-jets asthmatically splutter; and the mephitic glooms and silences of the dock-side. You know these things, and I need not attempt to illuminate them for you.
-- The Father of Yoto
There are minds to which the repulsive--such as Poplar High Street--is supremely beautiful, and to whom anything frankly human is indelicate, if not ugly. You need, however, to be a futurist to discover ecstatic beauty in the torn wastes of tiles, the groupings of iron and stone, and the nightmare of chimney-stacks and gas-works.
--The Father of Yoto
For all that he names the streets, ultimately you have no sense of place, only the sex and violence that takes place there:
Hardly the place to which one would turn as to the city of his dreams; yet there are those who do. Hearts are broken by Blackwall Gardens. The pity and terror and wonder of first love burn in the blood and limbs of those who serve behind the counters of East India Dock Road or load up cargo boats at the landing-stages. Love-mad hands have buried knives in little white bosoms in Commercial Road, and songs are written by the moon across many a happy garret-window in Cable Street.
--The Cue
From Pennyfields he drifted over West India Dock Road, passed a house where a window seemed deliberately to wink at him, and so swung into that Causeway where the cold fatalism of the Orient meets the wistful dubiety of the West.
--Beryl, the Croucher and the Rest of England
Ah yes -- where the cold fatalism of the Orient meets the wistful dubiety of the West. The people living in these generic dock streets are as typecast, as empty, as much evoked in our imaginations entirely for our amusement -- this passage refers to a fourteen year old dance hall girl uncomfortably sexualised to the hilt:
From him she had inherited a love of all raw and simple things, all that was odorous of the flesh. She hated country solitudes, and she loved Poplar and the lights and the noise of people. She loved it for its blatant life. She loved the streets, the glamour, the diamond dusks, the dirt and the perfume...Every street was a sharp-flavoured adventure, and at night each had a little untranslatable message for her. Everywhere she built romances. She was a mandarin's daughter in Pennyfields. She was a sailor's wife in the Isle of Dogs. In the West India Dock Road she was a South Sea princess, decked with barbaric jewels and very terrible knives. She did not like western London: it wasn't homey. She loved only the common joys of the flesh and the common joys of the heart; and these she found in Poplar.
--Gina of the Chinatown
She dies in childbirth at fifteen.
Not only are streets and people cut off (and happily so) from the rest of the city, but from the country and from nature itself, an island of unnatural connections and natural desires:
Beyond London, amid the spray of meadow and orchard, bird and bee were making carnival, but here one still gambled and waited to find a boat. Limehouse has no seasons. It has not even the divisions of day and night. Boats must sail at all hours at the will of the tide, and their swarthy crews are ever about. It has no means of marking the pomp of the year's procession. Lusty spring may rustle in the hedgerows; golden-tasselled summer may move on the meadows. In Limehouse there are only more seamen or less seamen. Summer is a spell of stickiness, and winter a time of fog.
--The Paw
Over and over again it licks its lips at the thought of white women with Chinese and Indians and Africans -- but mostly the Chinese because this is Chinatown after all. They are loose women because this class knows no better. He mocks their drudgery -- more annoying because he has actually bothered to find out what it might consist of and this is one of the only places he describes it to the extent to which it is possible for him:
Pansy was in trouble, and wanted money, of which he had none, for he was a destitute Oriental. Often they had gone about together, and in his way he had loved her. The girls of this quarter have a penchant for coloured boys, based, perhaps, on the attraction of repulsion.
Pansy lived in Pekin Street. About her window the wires wove a network, and the beat of waters, as they slapped about the wharves, was day and night in her ears. At evenings there came to her the wail of the Pennyfields Orient, or the hysterical chortlings of an organ with music-hall ditties. She worked at Bennett's Cocoa Rooms in East India Dock Road; and life for her, as for most of her class, was just a dark house in a dark street. From the morning's flush to the subtle evening, she stood at steaming urns, breathing an air limp with the smell of food, and serving unhealthy eatables to cabmen, draymen, and, occasionally, a yellow or black or brown sailor.
She was not pretty. The curse of labour was on her face, and she carried no delicacies wherewith to veil her maidenhood. From dawn to dusk, from spring to spring, she had trodden the golden hours in this routine, and knew, yet scarcely felt, the slow sucking of her ripening powers. Twenty-one she was; yet life had never sung to her. Toil, and again toil, was all she knew--toil on a weakened body, improperly fed; for your work-girl of the East seldom knows how to nourish herself. Pansy lived, for the most part, on tea and sweets.
--Tai Fu and Pansy Greers
This gives too, one of his explanations for miscegenation I think -- girls that can get no one else can, by virtue of their skin colour, snare a foreign sailor.
Written always from a comfortable point of superiority, Burke manages to deride many a remarkable achievement -- in this case stripping everything away but the fact of a woman who speaks four languages to a greater or lesser extent, I wonder just how much in reality this interracial intercultural exchange took place? But this is not Burke's point, instead these passages give you a sense of the slime crawling across his pages:
Poppy was fair in the eyes of a Chinaman; she was an anaemic slip of a girl, with coarse skin and mean mouth, a frightened manner and a defiant glance. She had scarce any friends, for she was known to be a copper's nark; thus came the fear in her step and the challenge in her eyes. Often she had blown the gaff on the secret games of Chinatown, for she spoke Cantonese and a little Swahili and some Hindustani, and could rustle it with the best of them; and it was her skill and shrewdness in directing the law to useful enterprises, such as the raiding of wicked houses, that caused her to be known in all local stations and courts as the Chinese Poppy.
She lived in the tactfully narrow Poplar High Street, that curls its nasty length from Limehouse to Blackwall, and directly opposite her cottage was the loathly lodging of Sway Lim--one room, black and smelly with dirt--next the home of the sailors of Japan.
She was a bad girl, mean and treacherous; everybody knew that; but she was young and very pale; so that Sway Lim, wet-lipped, would gloat upon her from his window.
-- The Sign of the Lamp
Of everything -- and apparently people have some appreciation of his craft -- I really liked only one sentence, and you cannot separate it from the vileness that comes before (or after):
And suddenly, on a bright Sunday, he lost her for all. She went from him to a yellow man in Pennyfields, leaving a derisive note of final farewell. The brutality of the blow got him like a knife on a wound. Something fouled within him, and for an hour or so he was stupid--a mere flabby Thing in a cotton suit.
--The Paw
Nor can he claim ignorance for the casual insulting racism of his language:
"Here--steady on, Chinky!" she cried, using the name which she knew would sting him to the soul. She was disconcerted and inclined to be cross, while half laughing. "Don't take liberties, my son. Specially with me. You're only a yellow rat, y'know."
--The Cue
Nor can he be forgiven for the terrible end of the boy described below -- betrayed by his own failings -- and Burke's inability to find a trace of empathy for his characters:
Now while the Captain remained drunk in his cabin, he kept with him for company the miserable, half-starved Chinky boy whom he had brought aboard. And it would make others sick if the full dark tale were told here of what the master of the Peacock did to that boy.
--The Bird
Nor does this phrase make any sense in describing that bright fourteen year old music hall singer that everyone loved until you start to vaguely think through the conflation of race and class and gender within others out there to amuse 'us':
She was as distinctive as a nigger in a snowstorm...
--Gina of the Chinatown
To read the rest of this very long review click here.
October 9, 2015
What a strange little fucked up book. All these short stories feature something dark. Either in a vintage urban Gothic Melodrama to just down right sick and twisted. Thomas Burke wasn't aware of any modern day sense of political correctness, so those who are easily offended shouldn't deal with this book.
The style and content remind me as if Lovecraft were attempting to write Noir set in London. The language is very similar, yet it invokes a comic book sense of urban dispair. It almost feels like a proto-Sin City of Frank Miller fame.
The dialog was hard to read as Burke really got deep with the cockney accents as well as some what racist attempts at Chinese accents. But..what can you do? It was 1916, and I'm sure his portrayal of the Chinese characters in his book was considered flattering or at least authentic from people of that area.
And yet I loves this book. It was just weird. I want to do comic books of his short stories or perhaps flash out the stories in a screen play and see why happens from that.
The style and content remind me as if Lovecraft were attempting to write Noir set in London. The language is very similar, yet it invokes a comic book sense of urban dispair. It almost feels like a proto-Sin City of Frank Miller fame.
The dialog was hard to read as Burke really got deep with the cockney accents as well as some what racist attempts at Chinese accents. But..what can you do? It was 1916, and I'm sure his portrayal of the Chinese characters in his book was considered flattering or at least authentic from people of that area.
And yet I loves this book. It was just weird. I want to do comic books of his short stories or perhaps flash out the stories in a screen play and see why happens from that.
May 16, 2020
Anyone reading this book is likely to be acutely aware that they're dealing with irrevocably, irredeemably, intrinsically racist literature. Anyone reading this book, then, is searching for something beyond this.
As much as I would love to hail this as a masterpiece of popular modernism, or as a committed prefiguring of the louche grotesqueness of John Waters, in the end, these stories just aren't very good. They're extremely formulaic, working only insofar as they shock the reader — but the way in which they shock isn't very appealing or memorable. As a fan of trash cinema, splatter, and giallo, I do commend Burke for deliberately creating something horrendous for people to gawp at — pushing people's morbid and sexual curiosities to their limits. Indeed, there is probably an added edge to the stories now in many ways, given that all the paedophilic desire and racism would not have been quite as shocking when these were first published (or, at least, not shocking in the same way). But, unfortunately, these stories don't quite cut it. Despite Burke's cool, choppy style (full of dashes and . . . ), these stories haven't the art to attract any true admiration.
As a relic of its time — and for encapsulating ideas about the Other and London in the 1910s — I find this book fascinating.
As much as I would love to hail this as a masterpiece of popular modernism, or as a committed prefiguring of the louche grotesqueness of John Waters, in the end, these stories just aren't very good. They're extremely formulaic, working only insofar as they shock the reader — but the way in which they shock isn't very appealing or memorable. As a fan of trash cinema, splatter, and giallo, I do commend Burke for deliberately creating something horrendous for people to gawp at — pushing people's morbid and sexual curiosities to their limits. Indeed, there is probably an added edge to the stories now in many ways, given that all the paedophilic desire and racism would not have been quite as shocking when these were first published (or, at least, not shocking in the same way). But, unfortunately, these stories don't quite cut it. Despite Burke's cool, choppy style (full of dashes and . . . ), these stories haven't the art to attract any true admiration.
As a relic of its time — and for encapsulating ideas about the Other and London in the 1910s — I find this book fascinating.
December 15, 2009
It's nice to see that Thomas Burke's wonderful "Limehouse Nights" is still in print. One of my favorite books (I have an original 1916 edition), it was a bestseller in its day. D.W. Griffith made a memorable film, "Broken Blossoms" (1919) from the opening story. The movie was such a huge success, Griffith tried again with "Dream Street". Unfortunately, Griffith this time couldn't leave well enough alone. He not only added some ridiculous sop-to-the-censor religious touches but even changed the valiant hero of Burke's story to a cackling melodramatic villain!
August 1, 2015
Scandalous Stories of Lust and Despair in London's World War I era Chinatown, (Limehouse District)
When it comes to well written, compelling, over the top melodramas that casually demean entire races and nationalities, it's hard to top British writers of a certain age and era. This book is all mood, character sketch, drama, despair, exaggeration and dismissive condescension, wrapped in a dark, exotic and totally fictitious atmosphere of license and decay.
Burke claimed to know London and its hidden dark places. Maybe he did and maybe he was a poseur. He did garner attention for a World War I era Chinese immigrant population that most Londoners didn't even know existed. He portrayed the Limehouse district as exotic and dangerous, driven by lust, drugs and madness. Not at all fair as an historical document, of course, and not fair to the actual residents of Limehouse, but nevertheless a wildly successful and scandalous recipe.
Now the book is mostly a curiosity, but it has some stark passages of raw power, some keen character building, and in some cases driving momentum. Curiously, it also falls into that quirky and very appealing English fiction sub-genre - "hidden London". Gaiman wrote one; Mieville wrote one; Simon Green has a whole marvelous series of "Tales From the Nightside". The message from all of those books is that there's something interesting going on in London that you don't know about and is sort of dangerous. If you like that genre or you like a fictional "Walk on the Wild Side", this is a very interesting choice.
When it comes to well written, compelling, over the top melodramas that casually demean entire races and nationalities, it's hard to top British writers of a certain age and era. This book is all mood, character sketch, drama, despair, exaggeration and dismissive condescension, wrapped in a dark, exotic and totally fictitious atmosphere of license and decay.
Burke claimed to know London and its hidden dark places. Maybe he did and maybe he was a poseur. He did garner attention for a World War I era Chinese immigrant population that most Londoners didn't even know existed. He portrayed the Limehouse district as exotic and dangerous, driven by lust, drugs and madness. Not at all fair as an historical document, of course, and not fair to the actual residents of Limehouse, but nevertheless a wildly successful and scandalous recipe.
Now the book is mostly a curiosity, but it has some stark passages of raw power, some keen character building, and in some cases driving momentum. Curiously, it also falls into that quirky and very appealing English fiction sub-genre - "hidden London". Gaiman wrote one; Mieville wrote one; Simon Green has a whole marvelous series of "Tales From the Nightside". The message from all of those books is that there's something interesting going on in London that you don't know about and is sort of dangerous. If you like that genre or you like a fictional "Walk on the Wild Side", this is a very interesting choice.
December 31, 2018
A collection of short stories set in the Limehouse area of London involving a collection of characters living and working in Chinatown and the dockland slums during the late 19th and early 20th century. Some quite graphic scenes of violence, particularly against children, and not very politically correct (for example referring to Chinese as 'Chinks') as would probably be typical of stories trying to give the impression of being written contemporaneously. A bit of a darkly Dickensian feel to these stories, which were quite entertaining - 7.5/10.
May 31, 2016
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.
May 13, 2022
"It was a tale of love and lovers that they tell in the low lit Causeway that slinks from West India Dock Road to the dark wastes of waters beyond."
We are in a sort of Chinatown so there are many lanterns.
I was probably being a little masochistic by selecting this book. I enjoy history and older fiction, but this is not my usual reading. The book is notorious for being racist. I can accept that. I did not know how racist it would be. It is also sexist, sensationalistic, and repetitive.
It takes place in Limehouse which used to be a poor area of London England with a Chinese and a working class White population. Story after story drags us into the world of sex trade workers, criminals, abuse, and revenge. Also, it features a good deal of Asian/White sex or attraction presented as a vulgar passion and of course a hot taboo. Even though the Asian characters are often the wronged party in many of these stories and the heroes in some, the writer presents them as animals in a menagerie. He doesn't handle the Irish and the English working class much better. Woman and girls are either abuse victims or manipulative slatterns. In "The Chink and the Child" (Seriously, that is the title) an angelic White child gets beaten and whipped. An older Chinese man who is attracted to her seeks revenge on her behalf. All of this is told with lurid detail down to the whip marks. In another story, a different kind of woman seeks revenge against a Chinese man for his sexual advances. These are typical of "Limehouse Nights."
Some of Burke's descriptions are good. They tend to be grotesque and he loves doing "nudge nudge wink wink" sorts of things, like describing Pansy Greer wearing "a dress which finished where it ought to have begun." Most of the time we have the gaudy writing of much Victorian popular fiction without the style of the best of them. Burke's stories are melodramatic and if you want that sort of thing than one or two of these might be fine. After that, they start to sound the same. But the better stories get it at least one star.
The book gets another star from me because it was a bestseller one hundred years ago. The success of this book and the popular movies made from a couple of the stories indicate the attitudes are ones that were acceptable and even common at the time. The book therefore gives a reader a look at how many European people thought at the time.
So this book is in many ways educational.
We are in a sort of Chinatown so there are many lanterns.
I was probably being a little masochistic by selecting this book. I enjoy history and older fiction, but this is not my usual reading. The book is notorious for being racist. I can accept that. I did not know how racist it would be. It is also sexist, sensationalistic, and repetitive.
It takes place in Limehouse which used to be a poor area of London England with a Chinese and a working class White population. Story after story drags us into the world of sex trade workers, criminals, abuse, and revenge. Also, it features a good deal of Asian/White sex or attraction presented as a vulgar passion and of course a hot taboo. Even though the Asian characters are often the wronged party in many of these stories and the heroes in some, the writer presents them as animals in a menagerie. He doesn't handle the Irish and the English working class much better. Woman and girls are either abuse victims or manipulative slatterns. In "The Chink and the Child" (Seriously, that is the title) an angelic White child gets beaten and whipped. An older Chinese man who is attracted to her seeks revenge on her behalf. All of this is told with lurid detail down to the whip marks. In another story, a different kind of woman seeks revenge against a Chinese man for his sexual advances. These are typical of "Limehouse Nights."
Some of Burke's descriptions are good. They tend to be grotesque and he loves doing "nudge nudge wink wink" sorts of things, like describing Pansy Greer wearing "a dress which finished where it ought to have begun." Most of the time we have the gaudy writing of much Victorian popular fiction without the style of the best of them. Burke's stories are melodramatic and if you want that sort of thing than one or two of these might be fine. After that, they start to sound the same. But the better stories get it at least one star.
The book gets another star from me because it was a bestseller one hundred years ago. The success of this book and the popular movies made from a couple of the stories indicate the attitudes are ones that were acceptable and even common at the time. The book therefore gives a reader a look at how many European people thought at the time.
So this book is in many ways educational.
May 12, 2016
Enthralling and violent tales from the dark end of the street, Limehouse Nights is a remarkable collection of well-crafted short stories and vignettes that are inheritors of both naturalism and slum literature, but with a powerful twist of its own that allows it to overcome the not-too-subtle racist strain that runs right through its core. Unlike traditional slum literature, Burke is not a "redeemer"... rather, the narrator presents himself as an objective, first-hand witness that belongs to the same harsh world that he is (re)creating (in the same way that the author (re)created himself as a child of the slums turned writer). And unlike hardcore naturalism, Burke is not afraid to romanticize both the dark and luminous aspects of Limehouse and its inhabitants. Tales of wayward girls, men who live and die by their fists and guns, and, of course, the enrapturing and menacing presence of the "yellow peril" draws us into an unescapable cycle of lush violence and base desires. And that is the book's most lasting triumph: making us believe or reminding us that, althoug life in the slums is undoubtadely soaked in violence, nevertheless it is vibrant and pulsing, a veritable lust for life that is unknown beyond its borders.
Of course, the book and its author are also know for their racist slant, but it's not quite as simple as it seems (and certainly not a reason to avoid reading this and other books in the Limsehouse serires), and its certainly mixed with a hardly veiled fascination. Burke's depiction of Asian (mainly Chinese) characters is both complex and controversial. Both villains and victims, both heroes and crooks, Chinese characters (freely referred to as "chinks"... a term latter shunned due to its racist implications) bring the exotic Orient into the dark heart of the civilized world. Some are perennially longing for a homeland that they will never return to, and some turn into kingpins of their ghetto, but both are capable of expanding their web of decadence into the rest of the world. Their sexual deviances are of particular and morbid concern to non-Asian characters and narrator alike (and firmly belongs in the cultural undercurrent in English literature and culture that was still very much appalled by cross-breeding), eventhough their treatment of English women is as no more brutal than that of pure-breed Englishmen.
Of course, the book and its author are also know for their racist slant, but it's not quite as simple as it seems (and certainly not a reason to avoid reading this and other books in the Limsehouse serires), and its certainly mixed with a hardly veiled fascination. Burke's depiction of Asian (mainly Chinese) characters is both complex and controversial. Both villains and victims, both heroes and crooks, Chinese characters (freely referred to as "chinks"... a term latter shunned due to its racist implications) bring the exotic Orient into the dark heart of the civilized world. Some are perennially longing for a homeland that they will never return to, and some turn into kingpins of their ghetto, but both are capable of expanding their web of decadence into the rest of the world. Their sexual deviances are of particular and morbid concern to non-Asian characters and narrator alike (and firmly belongs in the cultural undercurrent in English literature and culture that was still very much appalled by cross-breeding), eventhough their treatment of English women is as no more brutal than that of pure-breed Englishmen.
June 9, 2020
Una parte de este libro de relatos me ha encantado. Otra, la he detestado.
Me ha fascinado el lenguaje, la elección de las palabras, la ambientación, los escenarios, el ritmo, los personajes, la prosa. Me ha gustado muchísimo y ha habido ocasiones en que, pese a la crudeza de las historias, me parecía estar leyendo poesía.
A cambio, a ver, hay que tener mucha sangre fría para recordar que estos relatos se escribieron a principios del s. XX, en una época diferente y en una sociedad en la que imperaba la ley del más fuerte y en que la vida humana no valía nada. Son relatos misóginos, racistas y pedófilos.
Es otra época, no lo olvido, pero se hace difícil leer historias de niñas que se enamoran de sus violadores, mujeres que merecen palizas de sus maridos o padres como castigo por lo que han hecho (o no) y putos amarillos y negros. Se hace muy difícil.
Te lo recomiendo si eres capaz de recordar esa diferencia de época. Sí no, mejor déjalo
Me ha fascinado el lenguaje, la elección de las palabras, la ambientación, los escenarios, el ritmo, los personajes, la prosa. Me ha gustado muchísimo y ha habido ocasiones en que, pese a la crudeza de las historias, me parecía estar leyendo poesía.
A cambio, a ver, hay que tener mucha sangre fría para recordar que estos relatos se escribieron a principios del s. XX, en una época diferente y en una sociedad en la que imperaba la ley del más fuerte y en que la vida humana no valía nada. Son relatos misóginos, racistas y pedófilos.
Es otra época, no lo olvido, pero se hace difícil leer historias de niñas que se enamoran de sus violadores, mujeres que merecen palizas de sus maridos o padres como castigo por lo que han hecho (o no) y putos amarillos y negros. Se hace muy difícil.
Te lo recomiendo si eres capaz de recordar esa diferencia de época. Sí no, mejor déjalo
March 2, 2021
Great penny dreadfuls
First I bought this book because of the short story of the chink and the child (aka Lillian Gish's Broken blossoms 1919) on further reading I found A Great cash of period pieces
First I bought this book because of the short story of the chink and the child (aka Lillian Gish's Broken blossoms 1919) on further reading I found A Great cash of period pieces
November 25, 2025
Una pisca de melodrama oscuro inglés oculto. Pensé que no iba a encontrar a nadie más que hubiera leído esto.
January 17, 2025
Fourteen Short Stories.
🖊 The Chink and the Child: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I have enjoyed this story since I first saw the 1919 movie. The lesson of the story is this: Nothing should ever stop one person from helping and loving another. Love – in the sense of compassion and empathy, not lust, is the key to harmony and peace. It is a lesson for the entire world. I found the beautifully written story to be heart rendering and honest. The language is apropos. In this short story, a motherless young girl is mercilessly beaten and downtrodden by her father. A Chinese man takes pity on her, and he finds that he loves her as a brother would love his sister. The abusive father gets his comeuppance. A few movies were made from this short story; the 1919 version follows the original quite well. I have yet to watch the 1936 movie.
🎥 1919 silent movie Broken Blossoms from The Chink and the Child with Lilian Gish and Richard Barthelmess. Directed by D.W. Griffith.
🎥 1936 movie, Broken Blossoms from The Chink and the Child; British production.
🎥 There were two Japanese movies made set in Japan in Yokohama’s Chinatown.
🖍️The Father of Yoto: I enjoyed this; very touching. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖍️Gracie Goodnight: Good reading. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖍️The Paw: This story kept my interest through and through. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖍️The Cue: Good writing; smooth plot. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖍️Beryl, the Croucher and the Rest of England: I enjoyed this. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎥 1949 movie No Way Back comes from Beryl and the Croucher.
🖍️The Sign of the Lamp: The smoothness of the plot impressed me. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖍️Tai Fu and Pansy Greers: This was alright. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖍️The Bird: Impressive short story. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖍️Gina of the Chinatown: This was a shocking story. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎥 1921 movie Dream Street comes from Gina of Chinatown and Song of the Lamp.
🖍️The Knight-Errant: Alright. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖍️The Gorilla and the Girl: This was so-so. ⭐️⭐️
🖍️Ding-Dong-Dell: This was a good one. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖍️Old Joe: Interesting from start to finish. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
📕Published in 1919.
જ⁀🟢 E-book version on Project Gutenburg.
જ⁀🟣 Kindle.
🎥 1919 movie Broken Blossoms comes from The Chink and the Child.
🎥 1936 movie Broken Blossoms comes from The Chink and the Child.
🎥 1921 movie Dream Street comes from Gina of Chinatown and Song of the Lamp.
🎥 1949 movie No Way Back comes from Beryl and the Croucher.
༺ ༅ ✬ ༅ ༻ ༺ ༅ ✬ ༅ ༻
My rating:
My total rating for this collective work: ★★★★☆ (3.92)
🖊 The Chink and the Child: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I have enjoyed this story since I first saw the 1919 movie. The lesson of the story is this: Nothing should ever stop one person from helping and loving another. Love – in the sense of compassion and empathy, not lust, is the key to harmony and peace. It is a lesson for the entire world. I found the beautifully written story to be heart rendering and honest. The language is apropos. In this short story, a motherless young girl is mercilessly beaten and downtrodden by her father. A Chinese man takes pity on her, and he finds that he loves her as a brother would love his sister. The abusive father gets his comeuppance. A few movies were made from this short story; the 1919 version follows the original quite well. I have yet to watch the 1936 movie.
🎥 1919 silent movie Broken Blossoms from The Chink and the Child with Lilian Gish and Richard Barthelmess. Directed by D.W. Griffith.
🎥 1936 movie, Broken Blossoms from The Chink and the Child; British production.
🎥 There were two Japanese movies made set in Japan in Yokohama’s Chinatown.
🖍️The Father of Yoto: I enjoyed this; very touching. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖍️Gracie Goodnight: Good reading. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖍️The Paw: This story kept my interest through and through. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖍️The Cue: Good writing; smooth plot. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖍️Beryl, the Croucher and the Rest of England: I enjoyed this. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎥 1949 movie No Way Back comes from Beryl and the Croucher.
🖍️The Sign of the Lamp: The smoothness of the plot impressed me. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖍️Tai Fu and Pansy Greers: This was alright. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖍️The Bird: Impressive short story. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖍️Gina of the Chinatown: This was a shocking story. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎥 1921 movie Dream Street comes from Gina of Chinatown and Song of the Lamp.
🖍️The Knight-Errant: Alright. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖍️The Gorilla and the Girl: This was so-so. ⭐️⭐️
🖍️Ding-Dong-Dell: This was a good one. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖍️Old Joe: Interesting from start to finish. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
📕Published in 1919.
જ⁀🟢 E-book version on Project Gutenburg.
જ⁀🟣 Kindle.
🎥 1919 movie Broken Blossoms comes from The Chink and the Child.
🎥 1936 movie Broken Blossoms comes from The Chink and the Child.
🎥 1921 movie Dream Street comes from Gina of Chinatown and Song of the Lamp.
🎥 1949 movie No Way Back comes from Beryl and the Croucher.
༺ ༅ ✬ ༅ ༻ ༺ ༅ ✬ ༅ ༻
My rating:
My total rating for this collective work: ★★★★☆ (3.92)
February 7, 2025
I picked this up because I'm looking for books similar to one I'm working on, but this definitely doesn't fit the bill. It's racist, it's gauche, it's orientalist and way too comfortable with sexualizing young girls. I regret reading it. Maybe if you're looking for something kind of pulpy that's shocking for the sake of shock, you could read it, but I can't say I'd recommend it otherwise. Not only did I not enjoy it, I also know it won't stick to my ribs in the way a good, thought provoking book should. It's the literary equivalent of a gas station snack.
April 3, 2023
This has a bunch of intriguing stories in it: The Chink and the Child - but, what impressed me the most is that it had the story that has Shirley Temple's Curly Top in it! Some of the stores were sort of brutal an bring up memories that people would probably like to forget but it is well-written and just impressive that so many movies were made from so many of these stores and it’s only 132 pages long so.....most impressive! And, a good read!
May 6, 2024
Problematic in content but interesting
August 17, 2025
A cruel life, especially for the poor young girls.
June 9, 2018
Edición española de 1947. ¿Primera en castellano?
Libro de cuentos en tapa dura que quizás supo tener sobrecubierta alguna vez.
Libro de cuentos en tapa dura que quizás supo tener sobrecubierta alguna vez.
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May 24, 2018Cuentos brutales de Burke.
Want to Read
October 6, 2018Synopsis: a strange and difficult book. Short stories about crime in London's Chinese community in the 1910s.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews