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The Empty Sleeve
'Him what's born on the chime . . . he's the one what'll have communications with the devil.'At the age of fourteen, 'chime-child' Peter Gannet is apprenticed to a locksmith in Covent Garden. But his desperate longing to escape from the insufferable adults around him and go to sea leads him into some dubious undertakings. Before long, the old ship's carpenter's dire prophecy comes true, for in the locksmith's workroom he meets a phantom with an empty sleeve.Tense and atmospheric, this is a gripping thriller about ghosts, a wall of hands, envy, dishonesty and finally murder!
256 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 1, 1988
1 person is currently reading
20 people want to read
About the author
Leon Garfield
119 books49 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 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 28, 2020
Young man from a poor background - check.
Late eighteenth, early nineteenth century - check.
Older male character who takes protagonist under his wings but may have more to him (either for the better or worse) - check.
Main characters indulges in a little light criminality which we don’t hate them for but establishes them as being in the precarious side of the law - check.
Slightly peculiar ghostly goings on - check.
Themes and characters that should probably not be in a book marketed for children - check.
People with the names of birds - check. (Including: Gannet, Shoveller, Woodcock, Kite, Jay and Crane - also, two main characters being called Peter and Paul, like the dickie birds in the rhyme).
Really striking writing that is far better than many other modern authors - check.
It’s clear that this is, to a certain extent, a by-the-numbers Garfield romp.
There are a few differences to give the book spice though. This book introduces twins, who are of very different temperaments, our hero is a few minutes older and a more burly, physical protagonist than we often find in this sort of book. Garfield’s also very good at finding interesting occupations to explore and this one is that of locksmith and key-maker. There are some interesting notions that because the locksmith has a copy of everybody’s keys (so her can make spares if need be) he has to be a person of strict integrity, although there were those like Deacon Brodie in Edinburgh who didn’t quite live up to this. There’s also the idea that people in charge of such secrets must themselves be very locked up - and it’s the secrets of the locksmith that cause the main tragedy in the book.
There’s the addition of otherworldly elements in the book. The protagonist, Paul is a ‘chime-child’, a kid born at midnight who will see ghosts and meet the devil, as much as Garfield was compared to Dickens, that feels more like an Harrison-Ainsworth conceit, especially the character of Mr Bagley, the retired old sea-dog who introduces it. He gives the boys a ship in a bottle each, which have a mystic connection to the boys and represent their soul. Then there’s a wall where old workers at the locksmiths put their hands and the handprints turn into ghosts - except for the one with the empty sleeve.
Although The Empty Sleeve might not be much more than a pretty typical Leon Garfield adventure, that is recommendation in itself. Where else would the location be an alleyway where one side is called the sin because of a little wooden devil and the other the God, because of the Christian propagation centre?
Late eighteenth, early nineteenth century - check.
Older male character who takes protagonist under his wings but may have more to him (either for the better or worse) - check.
Main characters indulges in a little light criminality which we don’t hate them for but establishes them as being in the precarious side of the law - check.
Slightly peculiar ghostly goings on - check.
Themes and characters that should probably not be in a book marketed for children - check.
People with the names of birds - check. (Including: Gannet, Shoveller, Woodcock, Kite, Jay and Crane - also, two main characters being called Peter and Paul, like the dickie birds in the rhyme).
Really striking writing that is far better than many other modern authors - check.
It’s clear that this is, to a certain extent, a by-the-numbers Garfield romp.
There are a few differences to give the book spice though. This book introduces twins, who are of very different temperaments, our hero is a few minutes older and a more burly, physical protagonist than we often find in this sort of book. Garfield’s also very good at finding interesting occupations to explore and this one is that of locksmith and key-maker. There are some interesting notions that because the locksmith has a copy of everybody’s keys (so her can make spares if need be) he has to be a person of strict integrity, although there were those like Deacon Brodie in Edinburgh who didn’t quite live up to this. There’s also the idea that people in charge of such secrets must themselves be very locked up - and it’s the secrets of the locksmith that cause the main tragedy in the book.
There’s the addition of otherworldly elements in the book. The protagonist, Paul is a ‘chime-child’, a kid born at midnight who will see ghosts and meet the devil, as much as Garfield was compared to Dickens, that feels more like an Harrison-Ainsworth conceit, especially the character of Mr Bagley, the retired old sea-dog who introduces it. He gives the boys a ship in a bottle each, which have a mystic connection to the boys and represent their soul. Then there’s a wall where old workers at the locksmiths put their hands and the handprints turn into ghosts - except for the one with the empty sleeve.
Although The Empty Sleeve might not be much more than a pretty typical Leon Garfield adventure, that is recommendation in itself. Where else would the location be an alleyway where one side is called the sin because of a little wooden devil and the other the God, because of the Christian propagation centre?
March 22, 2022
One of my favourite 'children's' authors, the late Leon Garfield captured history for adventurous boys in his lively & often sinister novels of around 175 pages...often, too, with fine illustrations by noted practitioners of 'accurate' renderings of past scenes & events, based on the facts! (One of them, Antony Maitland, a master of a blend between caricature & cartoon!).
This 1988 novel tells of twin, Cockney brothers from riverside Rotherhithe in the later 18th century whose lives take very different paths but meet again in a dramatice & murderous climate, full of period & London detail, when a ghostly manifestation wins the day for justice & good.
The book is full of characters; colourful, eccentric, wicked & confused but always an addition to the atmosphere of a London that still has such misfits, crooks & victims & brave souls willing to take a stand for their individuality & ambitions. A very good antidote to the drivel that children are obliged to read in the 21st century...when reality is all fictitious, isn't it? (A wizard told me that!...some bloke called....whoosh!...he's not real!).
This 1988 novel tells of twin, Cockney brothers from riverside Rotherhithe in the later 18th century whose lives take very different paths but meet again in a dramatice & murderous climate, full of period & London detail, when a ghostly manifestation wins the day for justice & good.
The book is full of characters; colourful, eccentric, wicked & confused but always an addition to the atmosphere of a London that still has such misfits, crooks & victims & brave souls willing to take a stand for their individuality & ambitions. A very good antidote to the drivel that children are obliged to read in the 21st century...when reality is all fictitious, isn't it? (A wizard told me that!...some bloke called....whoosh!...he's not real!).
August 1, 2017
Gekregen van een vriend die het in Zeist gevonden had, maar er niets mee deed. Jammer dat het een kinderboek is (iedereen hier in huis is er te oud voor), maar ik heb het toch gelezen.
Tja, zo'n gevonden boek heeft toch iets bijzonders, dan moet ik het toch écht lezen. Leuk boek, nog best spannend. Grappig, die liefde tussen twee broers en de ondeugendheid van de wereld.
Tja, zo'n gevonden boek heeft toch iets bijzonders, dan moet ik het toch écht lezen. Leuk boek, nog best spannend. Grappig, die liefde tussen twee broers en de ondeugendheid van de wereld.
December 18, 2022
oooh! this is definitely a cliff-hanging, surprising book
December 17, 2012
This was a real treat from my youth! Leon Garfield is a master at creating an evocative 'olde England' atmosphere'. Full of mystery and evocative description, I really enjoyed remembering how much I enjoyed this in the first place! Looking forward to rediscovering some more Leon Garfield classics - seem to remember that John Diamond was excellent...
May 17, 2014
Very clever. Tense, atmospheric, creepy. Full of glorious, textured description. '...sailors with escapes so narrow you had to listen to them sideways.' My favourite quote from a great book.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews