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A Child of the Jago
A Child of the Jago By Arthur Morrison
110 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1896
51 people are currently reading
739 people want to read
About the author
Arthur Morrison
319 books16 followersArthur George Morrison (1863-1945) was an English author and journalist, known for his realistic novels about London's East End and for his detective stories. In 1890, he left his job as a clerk at the People's Palace and joined the editorial staff of the Evening Globe newspaper. The following year, he published a story titled "A Street", which was subsequently published in book form in Tales of Mean Streets (1894). Around this time, Morrison was also producing detective short stories which emulated those of Conan Doyle about Sherlock Holmes. Three volumes of Martin Hewitt stories were published before the publication of the novel for which Morrison is most famous: A Child of the Jago (1896). Other less well-received novels and stories followed, until Morrison effectively retired from writing fiction around 1913. Between then and his death, he seems to have concentrated on building his collection of Japanese prints and paintings.
Amongst his other works are Martin Hewitt: Investigator (1894), Zig-Zags at the Zoo (1894), Chronicles of Martin Hewett (1895), Adventures of Martin Hewett (1896), and The Hole in the Wall (1902).
Amongst his other works are Martin Hewitt: Investigator (1894), Zig-Zags at the Zoo (1894), Chronicles of Martin Hewett (1895), Adventures of Martin Hewett (1896), and The Hole in the Wall (1902).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 84 reviews
March 23, 2022
This novel is 156 pages long but you have to have all the extra 60 pages of notes & glossaries & so forth because of this kind of thing:
They and their friends resorted to a shop in Meakin Street kept by an “ikey” tailor, there to buy the original out-and-out benjamins, or the celebrated bang-up kicksies, cut saucy, with artful buttons and a double fakement down the sides
Or
Those of the High Mob were the flourishing practitioners in burglary, the mag, the mace, and the broads with an outer fringe of such dippers as could dress well, welshers and snidesmen.
So this is a short novel of life in the very worst slum in the East End of London around 1890, where the death rate was four times higher than London in general. We follow the fortunes of the Perrott family and it is no spoiler to say that the general drift is down, down, down and down.
Morrison veers between broad satire, low comedy, and bald tragedy. He distinctly echoes Dickens’ brilliant sketches of lowlife. Our hero Dicky Perrott learns to become an Artful Dodger character, and his main criminal accomplice is a fence who is surely first cousin of Fagin.
In the late Victorian period the astonishing squalor and wretchedness of the East End (and other English slums) became a source of fascination for the army of middle-class do-gooders (parodied here as the East End Elevation Mission and Pansophical Institute) and there were a bundle of books, novels and reportage, published –
In Darkest England
Homes of the London Poor
Workers in the Dawn
How the Poor Live
Life below the Surface
Neighbours of Ours : Slum Stories of London
Maggie : A Child of the Streets
You can see it was a whole genre. A Child of the Jago became maybe the most famous, most read, and most discussed of all of these.
By the way, the genre continues into our own times – check out Lou Reed’s great album New York which is a meditation on ghetto life
Pedro lives out of the Wilshire hotel
He looks out a window without glass
The walls are made of cardboard, newspapers on his feet
His father beats him cause he’s too tired to beg
He’s got 9 brothers and sisters
They're brought up on their knees
Its hard to run when a coat hanger beats you on the thighs
Pedro dreams of being older and killing the old man
But that's a slim chance
he’s going to the boulevard
He’s going to end up, on the dirty boulevard
(Dirty Boulevard)
And Neil Young from his album Freedom
I see a woman in the night with a baby in her hand
Under an old street light near a garbage can
Now she puts the kid away, and she's gone to get a hit
She hates her life, and what she's done to it
There's one more kid that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool.
Keep on rockin' in the free world
(Rockin’ in the Free World)
And you may also check out several movies like Boyz n the Hood, Menace II Society and City of God.
So none of this has gone away.
This bitter novel has a raw energy and is surprisingly nasty. The violence which permeates every facet of slum life is wearing, as is the constant near-starvation. Usually, writers on the underclass turn out to be keeping some kind of patented socialist solution close to hand, to brandish in the closing chapters or to berate the reader with in the introduction. Arthur Morrison had no such beliefs in improvability. He seems to have thought that the slum families were born into Hell and lived in Hell and died in Hell and could never get out of Hell due to their own corrupted natures and the incorrigibility of their environment. A cheerful soul, our Arthur. And yet, why write a novel like this at all if not as a protest? And why protest something which can never be ameliorated?
Utterly bleak it may be, but A Child of the Jago was criticized by several writers at the time of pulling its punches.
The book grew out of Mr Morrison’s friendship with a pastor who was working in the slums here depicted, and he is the hero of the novel. He really does do a lot of good work. He almost acts as a corrective to the bleak wail of despair which is the rest of the novel. But he’s just one guy. What you are left with is an acrid aftertaste, the sound of broken glass and someone slumped and bleeding in a corner. Rats looking on.
They and their friends resorted to a shop in Meakin Street kept by an “ikey” tailor, there to buy the original out-and-out benjamins, or the celebrated bang-up kicksies, cut saucy, with artful buttons and a double fakement down the sides
Or
Those of the High Mob were the flourishing practitioners in burglary, the mag, the mace, and the broads with an outer fringe of such dippers as could dress well, welshers and snidesmen.
So this is a short novel of life in the very worst slum in the East End of London around 1890, where the death rate was four times higher than London in general. We follow the fortunes of the Perrott family and it is no spoiler to say that the general drift is down, down, down and down.
Morrison veers between broad satire, low comedy, and bald tragedy. He distinctly echoes Dickens’ brilliant sketches of lowlife. Our hero Dicky Perrott learns to become an Artful Dodger character, and his main criminal accomplice is a fence who is surely first cousin of Fagin.
In the late Victorian period the astonishing squalor and wretchedness of the East End (and other English slums) became a source of fascination for the army of middle-class do-gooders (parodied here as the East End Elevation Mission and Pansophical Institute) and there were a bundle of books, novels and reportage, published –
In Darkest England
Homes of the London Poor
Workers in the Dawn
How the Poor Live
Life below the Surface
Neighbours of Ours : Slum Stories of London
Maggie : A Child of the Streets
You can see it was a whole genre. A Child of the Jago became maybe the most famous, most read, and most discussed of all of these.
By the way, the genre continues into our own times – check out Lou Reed’s great album New York which is a meditation on ghetto life
Pedro lives out of the Wilshire hotel
He looks out a window without glass
The walls are made of cardboard, newspapers on his feet
His father beats him cause he’s too tired to beg
He’s got 9 brothers and sisters
They're brought up on their knees
Its hard to run when a coat hanger beats you on the thighs
Pedro dreams of being older and killing the old man
But that's a slim chance
he’s going to the boulevard
He’s going to end up, on the dirty boulevard
(Dirty Boulevard)
And Neil Young from his album Freedom
I see a woman in the night with a baby in her hand
Under an old street light near a garbage can
Now she puts the kid away, and she's gone to get a hit
She hates her life, and what she's done to it
There's one more kid that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool.
Keep on rockin' in the free world
(Rockin’ in the Free World)
And you may also check out several movies like Boyz n the Hood, Menace II Society and City of God.
So none of this has gone away.
This bitter novel has a raw energy and is surprisingly nasty. The violence which permeates every facet of slum life is wearing, as is the constant near-starvation. Usually, writers on the underclass turn out to be keeping some kind of patented socialist solution close to hand, to brandish in the closing chapters or to berate the reader with in the introduction. Arthur Morrison had no such beliefs in improvability. He seems to have thought that the slum families were born into Hell and lived in Hell and died in Hell and could never get out of Hell due to their own corrupted natures and the incorrigibility of their environment. A cheerful soul, our Arthur. And yet, why write a novel like this at all if not as a protest? And why protest something which can never be ameliorated?
Utterly bleak it may be, but A Child of the Jago was criticized by several writers at the time of pulling its punches.
The book grew out of Mr Morrison’s friendship with a pastor who was working in the slums here depicted, and he is the hero of the novel. He really does do a lot of good work. He almost acts as a corrective to the bleak wail of despair which is the rest of the novel. But he’s just one guy. What you are left with is an acrid aftertaste, the sound of broken glass and someone slumped and bleeding in a corner. Rats looking on.
March 14, 2019
While watching an old ep of Rumpole of the Bailey this book was the star of an ep I thought it was made up but no it really is a good classic.
Like the Gangs of New York or The modern Gangbangers of America this set in later part of the dirty Gin slums of underside of London like Martin Chuzzlewit or Oliver Twist the Nightmare on Elm Street of Queen Victorian London the part that no one gave blind fuck about.
This been homeless in 1880s when Jack walked this violence of East End.
Don't read the intro as it's only if know the story.
Like the Gangs of New York or The modern Gangbangers of America this set in later part of the dirty Gin slums of underside of London like Martin Chuzzlewit or Oliver Twist the Nightmare on Elm Street of Queen Victorian London the part that no one gave blind fuck about.
This been homeless in 1880s when Jack walked this violence of East End.
Don't read the intro as it's only if know the story.
January 2, 2021
Hobsbawm sanayi devriminin toplumsal hayat üzerindeki etkilerini döneme ait bazı edebiyat eserlerinde de gözlemleyebileceğimizi söylüyor. Önerdiği eserler arasında bu kitap da var.
Düzenli bir iş bulma ümidini toptan yitirmiş, geleceğe dair hiçbir öngörüsü veya beklentisi olamayan koca bir mahalle dolusu insanın hayatta kalma mücadelesini anlatıyor. Yazar Arthur Morrison bir gazeteciymiş ve bu kitabı 1896’da gazetecilik deneyimine ve gördüklerine dayanarak yazmış. Anlatımı bir parçacık kuru geldi bana ama yine de memnun kaldım. Dönemle özel olarak ilgilenenlere tavsiye ederim.
Düzenli bir iş bulma ümidini toptan yitirmiş, geleceğe dair hiçbir öngörüsü veya beklentisi olamayan koca bir mahalle dolusu insanın hayatta kalma mücadelesini anlatıyor. Yazar Arthur Morrison bir gazeteciymiş ve bu kitabı 1896’da gazetecilik deneyimine ve gördüklerine dayanarak yazmış. Anlatımı bir parçacık kuru geldi bana ama yine de memnun kaldım. Dönemle özel olarak ilgilenenlere tavsiye ederim.
June 8, 2025
The Jago but is a fictional collection of joined slum streets in Bethnal Green that all include the word Jago and was based on the ‘Old Nichol’ slum that did exist in that area behind Shoreditch High Street.
Written in 1896 which is frighteningly close being just over a decade before my grandmother was born, it depicts a world for the poor that today we cannot contemplate. Although a fictional depiction of a family eking out a survival (one cannot describe their existence as living) it has nothing that was not recorded in Mayhew’s study London Labour and the London Poor or Jack London’s The People of the Abyss.
Babies die, crime is the only way to eat, children are exploited, casual violence is rife, alcohol is the anaesthetic of choice, neighbours steal from neighbours. In many ways it is an early form of misery-porn, the worst that can happen keeps on happening, and yet it does not irritate me or inflame hatred in me the way modern misery novels do. I am thinking of my most hated book here A Little Life which had the same sense of just when you think you’ve heard the worst of it there’s something even more depressing on the next page and can only conclude that the characters in the Jago don’t whine and wield their invitations to the pity party as the protagonist in ALL does. They do not act as born victims and despite having nothing (compared to ALL’s wealthy, professional) they see themselves as more in control of their lives, active agents rather than passive flotsam. These are people who realise they are born into the lowest strata of society, that they will be given nothing, that opportunities are few and if offered will be sabotaged by your neighbours or the person exploiting you. The most tragic thing is that these people place no value on their lives, dying is in many ways a welcome release from the struggle.
The book follows the Perrott family. At the start Dicky is a child of around nine, living with his mum and dad and baby sister in a small room in s shared building in the slum. It is intimated that the family had seen better times, his father having had a trade and his mother keeping herself to herself and not drinking like the rest of the women. She keeps up a pretence that the scant food they eat is bought with money earned legitimately and they all conspire in this fantasy. The saddest, most depressing aspect of the book is how many people are willing to take from those who have nothing. Dicky finds himself in hock to a fence for the crime of eating a piece of cake and drinking a cup of coffee offered him and so is sent to steal to repay it and is always offered laughably low amounts – Weech is nothing more than a Victorian loan shark. Dicky and the rest of the building’s inhabitants steal from a neighbour’s room when they inadvertently leave their door open and as even further proof that there is no honour among these thieves Weech, the fence is willing to rat out his suppliers (Dicky’s father being one) to the police.
The hopelessness is slightly offset by the single success story of one of Dicky’s peers who manages to stick to a regular job on a grocery stall and by the end has his own one although there is a tinge of sadness as we watch someone living Dicky’s modest dream that was within his reach but taken from him by Weech who slandered Dicky to his employer in order to retain him as a thief.
A depressing read that throws up all kinds of discussion points not least those current flash points such as the notion of white privilege and what does living in poverty mean today.
Written in 1896 which is frighteningly close being just over a decade before my grandmother was born, it depicts a world for the poor that today we cannot contemplate. Although a fictional depiction of a family eking out a survival (one cannot describe their existence as living) it has nothing that was not recorded in Mayhew’s study London Labour and the London Poor or Jack London’s The People of the Abyss.
Babies die, crime is the only way to eat, children are exploited, casual violence is rife, alcohol is the anaesthetic of choice, neighbours steal from neighbours. In many ways it is an early form of misery-porn, the worst that can happen keeps on happening, and yet it does not irritate me or inflame hatred in me the way modern misery novels do. I am thinking of my most hated book here A Little Life which had the same sense of just when you think you’ve heard the worst of it there’s something even more depressing on the next page and can only conclude that the characters in the Jago don’t whine and wield their invitations to the pity party as the protagonist in ALL does. They do not act as born victims and despite having nothing (compared to ALL’s wealthy, professional) they see themselves as more in control of their lives, active agents rather than passive flotsam. These are people who realise they are born into the lowest strata of society, that they will be given nothing, that opportunities are few and if offered will be sabotaged by your neighbours or the person exploiting you. The most tragic thing is that these people place no value on their lives, dying is in many ways a welcome release from the struggle.
The book follows the Perrott family. At the start Dicky is a child of around nine, living with his mum and dad and baby sister in a small room in s shared building in the slum. It is intimated that the family had seen better times, his father having had a trade and his mother keeping herself to herself and not drinking like the rest of the women. She keeps up a pretence that the scant food they eat is bought with money earned legitimately and they all conspire in this fantasy. The saddest, most depressing aspect of the book is how many people are willing to take from those who have nothing. Dicky finds himself in hock to a fence for the crime of eating a piece of cake and drinking a cup of coffee offered him and so is sent to steal to repay it and is always offered laughably low amounts – Weech is nothing more than a Victorian loan shark. Dicky and the rest of the building’s inhabitants steal from a neighbour’s room when they inadvertently leave their door open and as even further proof that there is no honour among these thieves Weech, the fence is willing to rat out his suppliers (Dicky’s father being one) to the police.
The hopelessness is slightly offset by the single success story of one of Dicky’s peers who manages to stick to a regular job on a grocery stall and by the end has his own one although there is a tinge of sadness as we watch someone living Dicky’s modest dream that was within his reach but taken from him by Weech who slandered Dicky to his employer in order to retain him as a thief.
A depressing read that throws up all kinds of discussion points not least those current flash points such as the notion of white privilege and what does living in poverty mean today.
October 20, 2019
“The Jago- enclave of squalor and brutality in London’s East End.”
If you are interested in reading how the poor fared in the Victorian period (19 th century) in London, then this is a book I would recommend!
We meet Dicky Perot, born into the Jago, who dreams of a better life. But it’s hard to escape this life, with little means of work, and barely enough food to exist.
The book reminded me of “Oliver Twist”, but without any potential for Dicky to escape his circumstances. The author has captured the brutality and utter hopelessness of the people who lived in the Jago. How they made it through each day was unfathomable.
I’d never heard of this author, but I am currently taking a course on Victorian society, and my professor made this book available, as it is a very true and accurate description of the slums as they were in that time.
Very well written. Glad I read it.
.
If you are interested in reading how the poor fared in the Victorian period (19 th century) in London, then this is a book I would recommend!
We meet Dicky Perot, born into the Jago, who dreams of a better life. But it’s hard to escape this life, with little means of work, and barely enough food to exist.
The book reminded me of “Oliver Twist”, but without any potential for Dicky to escape his circumstances. The author has captured the brutality and utter hopelessness of the people who lived in the Jago. How they made it through each day was unfathomable.
I’d never heard of this author, but I am currently taking a course on Victorian society, and my professor made this book available, as it is a very true and accurate description of the slums as they were in that time.
Very well written. Glad I read it.
.
December 19, 2020
Naturalism has been called the literature of "pessimistic materialistic determinism"...and by golly Arthur Morrison gives us a basinful in A Child of the Jago, his 1896 novel of slum-life in the East End of London.
Taking his cue from arch-Naturalist Émile Zola’s view of mankind as “human beasts”, Morrison tells the story of young Dicky Perrott – doomed at conception to poverty, squalor, ignorance, immorality, and violence thanks to “the grimed walls and foul earth”, “the close, mingled stink” of the Jago slums.
This is not so much a novel as a fictionalized anthropological study of an alien underclass by a highly biased observer. The book was dedicated to (and largely commissioned by) Arthur Osborne Jay, a muscular and rather eccentric clergymen who appears in the novel in the guise of Father Sturt. Jay worked in the Old Nichol Street rookery – the model for the fictional Jago – and though he may have done his best to help individuals, took an extraordinarily pessimistic view of his neighbours en masse. In his opinion, they were condemned by their hereditary environment to lives of vice. You just had to look at their bestial and subhuman phrenology. Best to level the slums and transport the residents to some not unpleasant penal settlement, managed so as to ”to stop the supply of persons born to be lazy, immoral, and deficient in intellect”. Eugenics – the scientific answer to the blighted lives of the poor!
All this means that, as a piece of fiction, A Child of the Jago is dispiriting. Not so much for its content – some of the slang and period descriptions are lively enough – but for the way its pseudoscientific message is hammered home page after page after page. The deliberately stereotyped characters can never be more than cartoon-like and are led through their predestined paces for the education of the shocked but concerned Victorian reader. A bit of Dickensian sentimentality and good humour wouldn’t have gone amiss – but no such luck.
“Here lies the Jago, a nest of rats, breeding, breeding, as only rats can...Is there a child in all this place that wouldn’t be better dead – still better unborn?” Amen to that, says Father Sturt. And so the book beats on till death and slum clearance bring it to a close. Interesting as a piece of period social commentary perhaps, but not much of a literary treat.
Taking his cue from arch-Naturalist Émile Zola’s view of mankind as “human beasts”, Morrison tells the story of young Dicky Perrott – doomed at conception to poverty, squalor, ignorance, immorality, and violence thanks to “the grimed walls and foul earth”, “the close, mingled stink” of the Jago slums.
This is not so much a novel as a fictionalized anthropological study of an alien underclass by a highly biased observer. The book was dedicated to (and largely commissioned by) Arthur Osborne Jay, a muscular and rather eccentric clergymen who appears in the novel in the guise of Father Sturt. Jay worked in the Old Nichol Street rookery – the model for the fictional Jago – and though he may have done his best to help individuals, took an extraordinarily pessimistic view of his neighbours en masse. In his opinion, they were condemned by their hereditary environment to lives of vice. You just had to look at their bestial and subhuman phrenology. Best to level the slums and transport the residents to some not unpleasant penal settlement, managed so as to ”to stop the supply of persons born to be lazy, immoral, and deficient in intellect”. Eugenics – the scientific answer to the blighted lives of the poor!
All this means that, as a piece of fiction, A Child of the Jago is dispiriting. Not so much for its content – some of the slang and period descriptions are lively enough – but for the way its pseudoscientific message is hammered home page after page after page. The deliberately stereotyped characters can never be more than cartoon-like and are led through their predestined paces for the education of the shocked but concerned Victorian reader. A bit of Dickensian sentimentality and good humour wouldn’t have gone amiss – but no such luck.
“Here lies the Jago, a nest of rats, breeding, breeding, as only rats can...Is there a child in all this place that wouldn’t be better dead – still better unborn?” Amen to that, says Father Sturt. And so the book beats on till death and slum clearance bring it to a close. Interesting as a piece of period social commentary perhaps, but not much of a literary treat.
July 11, 2020
A shockingly bleak and realistic portrait of Victorian slum life in Shoreditch. Is there any way the young Dick, the main character, can keep away from the seemingly inevitable life of crime? Every man in the Jago is a criminal (petty or greater), every woman either drinks or drudges, every child knows that there is no way out. Even the saintly (and just about credible) Father Sturt cannot save their souls.
Modern crime novels do their best to shock you. Few can hit you as hard as this.
Modern crime novels do their best to shock you. Few can hit you as hard as this.
Read
March 28, 2012Gang violence, running battles with the police, an underclass stealing everything that isn't nailed down? Let's hope Osborne & co haven't read this novel; they'll be using it as a blueprint for our future society.
Coming off somewhere between Dickens and Zola, Morrison writes not particularly sympathetically about life in the Victorian Shoreditch slum but posits, against the prevailing belief of the time, that criminality is caused by poverty rather than it being the natural character of the underclass. Morrison died in 1945 so didn't get to see the changes in the East End; how surprised he'd be by Shoreditch nowadays.
Coming off somewhere between Dickens and Zola, Morrison writes not particularly sympathetically about life in the Victorian Shoreditch slum but posits, against the prevailing belief of the time, that criminality is caused by poverty rather than it being the natural character of the underclass. Morrison died in 1945 so didn't get to see the changes in the East End; how surprised he'd be by Shoreditch nowadays.
October 30, 2007
Painful story of an impovershed family in London who must lie, steal and murder to feed themselves. Statement on the demoralizing effects of hunger, poverty and ghetto mentality.
December 17, 2015
This book was an eye-opener for me. Although, set in an English slum in the Victorian era, this story can be applied to dwellers of the inner-city in my own country.
It seems that Morrison wants the reader to think about how social class impacts on an individual's destiny. From an early age, Dicky Perrot appeareded to be on a downward spiral, not because he was a bad person but due to the fact that he grew up in an environment that never stimulated positive moral development. Productive ambition was never an option because he did not know that his life could be better until the vicar got him a job. I think this illustrates that children need to be encouraged to dream about success and constantly told that they are capable of achieve such success. His attitude to the new job was heartwarming.
Mr. Weech who I would call the main antagonist of the book, selfishly thwarts any dreams that Dicky has of success. At this point of the story, I wished that I could somehown enter the Jago and set things right.
The conclusion evoked feelings of discomfort, sadness and weary releif.
It seems that Morrison wants the reader to think about how social class impacts on an individual's destiny. From an early age, Dicky Perrot appeareded to be on a downward spiral, not because he was a bad person but due to the fact that he grew up in an environment that never stimulated positive moral development. Productive ambition was never an option because he did not know that his life could be better until the vicar got him a job. I think this illustrates that children need to be encouraged to dream about success and constantly told that they are capable of achieve such success. His attitude to the new job was heartwarming.
Mr. Weech who I would call the main antagonist of the book, selfishly thwarts any dreams that Dicky has of success. At this point of the story, I wished that I could somehown enter the Jago and set things right.
The conclusion evoked feelings of discomfort, sadness and weary releif.
March 10, 2020
I read this book a number of years ago whilst researching the area that my family lived in during the 18th to early 20th century, which was a stones throw from the real Jago (old Nichol) written about in this story.
This is no Dickens tale, there is no friendly middle-class family to rescue the boy from this life. This book is dark and harrowing and probably very close to the truth.
This is no Dickens tale, there is no friendly middle-class family to rescue the boy from this life. This book is dark and harrowing and probably very close to the truth.
April 16, 2011
The plight of everyone in this story is excruciating and utterly depressing to read. The despair and tragedy is literally non-stop. Yet somehow, through all the death and poverty and horror of the Victorian working class condition, there are moments of poignant beauty.
December 14, 2024
Memorable characters running wild in The Jago, a London East End slum. Focussing mainly on the Perrott family and their attempts to survive (mostly in vain) from day to day on a pittance supplied by petty thievery. Everybody is out for themselves with nary a second thought for their neighbors. Redemption of some sort is provided by Father Sturt who provides some relief but one man in a small area packed with the poorest of the poor is bound to fail in the main. Arthur Morrison is not a fan of the happy ending. Bleak but excellent semi-fictional novel which retains it's significance today.
October 12, 2023
2.5 stars.
January 24, 2023
An all too true picture of poverty and neglect.
July 25, 2013
The East End of London in the late 19th century was sometimes quite a pitiful place, the slums in particular, where just making it through the day was an achievement in itself. Crime, violence, prostitution and poverty were rife, and I think Arthur Morrison paints a vivid portrait of the squalor at that period of time in this short novel. Our main character, Dicky Perrott has known nothing else but the life in the Jago, with only one rule for life – “thou shall not nark,” and seen no other solution to his family’s poverty but crime. Unfortunately, his father is not much of a role model for him, when he is imprisoned for theft and violence against a “High Mobsman,” and his mother did little to gain my sympathy by playing a rather passive role in trying to improve their situation.
What did surprise me about this book was the level of violence which I hadn’t expected from the onset. There are rival gang wars and murders aplenty, and the horrifying tradition of “coshing,” where a young woman would distract the gentleman target enough so that he could be bopped on the head and left unconscious, while the perps made off with anything valuable he had on him. Throughout the novel, there is an air of melancholy, made even more poignant by the fact that we know as the reader that these were people’s situations in the East End at that time, and either nobody seemed to give a damn, they flat-out denied there was even a problem, or they turned a blind eye to the ghastly poverty. Father Sturt, who comes to take over the parish (and save all the sinners) is a beacon of light through the story, attempting to change the tenant’s fortunes, even though he has little hope of succeeding.
So, as a novel describing the East End, Arthur Morrison captured the situation so perfectly, and I did enjoy the book as a whole, understanding the message he was trying to get out, although it felt in general that there was something missing for me. Perhaps it was slightly too short and I didn’t feel I got to know the characters properly, although I have to admit the ending really lifted the book again in my estimation, it was fast-paced, exciting, and thoroughly horrible!
Please see my full review at http://www.bibliobeth.wordpress.com
What did surprise me about this book was the level of violence which I hadn’t expected from the onset. There are rival gang wars and murders aplenty, and the horrifying tradition of “coshing,” where a young woman would distract the gentleman target enough so that he could be bopped on the head and left unconscious, while the perps made off with anything valuable he had on him. Throughout the novel, there is an air of melancholy, made even more poignant by the fact that we know as the reader that these were people’s situations in the East End at that time, and either nobody seemed to give a damn, they flat-out denied there was even a problem, or they turned a blind eye to the ghastly poverty. Father Sturt, who comes to take over the parish (and save all the sinners) is a beacon of light through the story, attempting to change the tenant’s fortunes, even though he has little hope of succeeding.
So, as a novel describing the East End, Arthur Morrison captured the situation so perfectly, and I did enjoy the book as a whole, understanding the message he was trying to get out, although it felt in general that there was something missing for me. Perhaps it was slightly too short and I didn’t feel I got to know the characters properly, although I have to admit the ending really lifted the book again in my estimation, it was fast-paced, exciting, and thoroughly horrible!
Please see my full review at http://www.bibliobeth.wordpress.com
September 27, 2007
Imagine a book that starts out like a generic imitation of Dickens, like most Victorian socially-interested novels, initially light-hearted, which degenerates into gut-splattering violence a few chapters in.
Morisson's only remembered work displays all the hallmarks of naturalism, and is probably best remembered for its sociopathy. From the mass violence scenes where the bodies of flat, empty characters are battered to the death of Looey who is replaced by another faceless girl child, an event narrated with all the compassion of a census taker adding up the numbers of members in a family, the book places absolutely no value on human life. Dicky Perrot's rather predictable death at the end and his final comment along the lines of "there's another way out, better," seems to cap it all off. What way, might that be, Arthur? He more or less says -- and a room full of English PhDs agreed -- that Dicky's last words are the equivalent of death is better than poverty. His introduction that mentions his concern for the problems addressed just heightens the awfulness of the book's total disregard for morality.
If you like Dickens, read Dickens. If you want someone ripping off Dickens, try Walter Besant. If you want something disturbing, this doesn't even really fit the bill, lacking the camp of a serial-killer novel; the book pretends to care but really luxuriates in its own horrors. Thomas Harris has nothing on Arthur Morrisson.
Morisson's only remembered work displays all the hallmarks of naturalism, and is probably best remembered for its sociopathy. From the mass violence scenes where the bodies of flat, empty characters are battered to the death of Looey who is replaced by another faceless girl child, an event narrated with all the compassion of a census taker adding up the numbers of members in a family, the book places absolutely no value on human life. Dicky Perrot's rather predictable death at the end and his final comment along the lines of "there's another way out, better," seems to cap it all off. What way, might that be, Arthur? He more or less says -- and a room full of English PhDs agreed -- that Dicky's last words are the equivalent of death is better than poverty. His introduction that mentions his concern for the problems addressed just heightens the awfulness of the book's total disregard for morality.
If you like Dickens, read Dickens. If you want someone ripping off Dickens, try Walter Besant. If you want something disturbing, this doesn't even really fit the bill, lacking the camp of a serial-killer novel; the book pretends to care but really luxuriates in its own horrors. Thomas Harris has nothing on Arthur Morrisson.
February 9, 2012
This book reminds me of Oliver Twist but without any 'Dicken's sentimentality.'
I was quite shocked to read about death, murder, beatings and rape described in such a stark and graphic way. But in some ways was appreciative of the fact that Arthur Morrison does not shy away from the harsh reality of slum life in 1980s London.
Unlike Morrison, Dickens rewards his character at the end with a loving middle class family. Dicky has no escape from the violent life of London.
In the same way i was quite annoyed that Dicky did not take up the opportunity to better himself at the copper shop.
Oh well you cant have it all.
This would be a great book to share with older children. year 7/8- history, english, phse?
A comparison perhaps between the two would be quite interesting. year 6 perhaps. Yes year 6 can handle this!
Recommend!
I was quite shocked to read about death, murder, beatings and rape described in such a stark and graphic way. But in some ways was appreciative of the fact that Arthur Morrison does not shy away from the harsh reality of slum life in 1980s London.
Unlike Morrison, Dickens rewards his character at the end with a loving middle class family. Dicky has no escape from the violent life of London.
In the same way i was quite annoyed that Dicky did not take up the opportunity to better himself at the copper shop.
Oh well you cant have it all.
This would be a great book to share with older children. year 7/8- history, english, phse?
A comparison perhaps between the two would be quite interesting. year 6 perhaps. Yes year 6 can handle this!
Recommend!
October 9, 2016
Written a few years after his Tales of Mean Streets, this is a more detailed account of slum life in the Jago (Old Nichol slum in London) as it's being torn down around them. A story about the childhood of Dicky Perrott as he struggles to escape a life of crime. Morrison is critical of philanthropic and church institutions, class struggle, and warfare between adjacent slums surrounding the ghetto, while depicting Dicky's father figures, Fagin-like characters, a shop keeper, and a preacher who attempts to give him hope. Such a sad ending!
Read
December 20, 2009The Jago was a corner of Shoreditch, notorious as the filthiest of London's 19th century slums. In his 2nd East End work, A. Morrison brings to life all the squalor of this area, among whose only commandment was "thou shall not nark."
November 25, 2015
Not bad
March 28, 2018
Take Oliver Twist add Gissing's Nether World add violence, and hopelessness and you will have Morrison's Child of the Jago.
fic-guided
June 18, 2020I spent twenty-five years living and working in Los Angeles. Not once did I visit East LA, Compton, or Inglewood. I drove over them, many times a year, on the Century freeway to and from LAX airport. The nearest I got to ‘being there’ was listening to Tupac Shakur and Ice Cube on Power 105. Sometimes on that very freeway.
Victorians called the equivalently unvisitable areas of of their capital ‘Darkest London’ – as impenetrable to ‘decent’ people as the jungle, and inhabited by similarly dangerous fauna. Morrison offered his readers a chronicle of slum life in the Jago, in the East End of London. Historically it was the Old Nichol slum, behind the east side of what is now Shoreditch High Street. Very much a no-go area, the Jago was what Victorians called a ‘rookery’ – somewhere dark things hide out. Fagin is a rookery bird in Oliver Twist (his hangout is Jacob’s Island, in Bermondsey). The Old Nichol rookery was razed in the same year as Morrison’s novel came out, which is, in a sense, a grim elegy. Before the place came down, he spent eighteen months in Shoreditch, immersing himself in its degradation.
The ‘child’ of the title is Dicky, whose father, Josh Perrott, is a good man fallen into drink. Dicky, out of self-preservation rather than inherent villainy, apprentices himself to the ’Igh Mob – the street gang that runs the Jago. He is taken in hand by the villainous fence Aaron Weech, a hymn-singing hypocrite.
Dicky makes some feeble attempts to reform under the influence of the saintly clergyman Father Sturt. But after his father murders Weech, and swings for it, Dicky’s downward path is unstoppable. He dies in a street knife-fight and ‘honourably’ declines to name his killer. Scenes such as the fight with broken bottles between Norah Walsh and Sally Green shocked reviewers, and still have the power to shock modern readers:
Norah Walsh, vanquished champion, now somewhat recovered, looked from a window, saw her enemy vulnerable, and ran out armed with a bottle. She stopped at the kerb to knock the bottom off the bottle, and then, with an exultant shout, seized Sally Green by the hair and stabbed her about the face with the jagged points. Blinded with blood, Sally released her hold on Mrs Perrott and rolled on her back, struggling fiercely; but to no end, for Norah Walsh, kneeling on her breast, stabbed and stabbed again, till pieces of the bottle broke away. Sally’s yells and plunges ceased, and a man pulled Norah off.
Morrison’s novel was much reprinted and can be credited with many narrative conventions which later become clichés in romances of the ‘Dead End Kids’ kind, in literature and on the screen. The bloody clan fights in the Jago, between the Ranns and Learys, can be detected as far away as Scorsese’s ultra-violent film Gangs of New York. And, of course, the South Central LA battles celebrated by rap artist Tupac Shakur.
Victorians called the equivalently unvisitable areas of of their capital ‘Darkest London’ – as impenetrable to ‘decent’ people as the jungle, and inhabited by similarly dangerous fauna. Morrison offered his readers a chronicle of slum life in the Jago, in the East End of London. Historically it was the Old Nichol slum, behind the east side of what is now Shoreditch High Street. Very much a no-go area, the Jago was what Victorians called a ‘rookery’ – somewhere dark things hide out. Fagin is a rookery bird in Oliver Twist (his hangout is Jacob’s Island, in Bermondsey). The Old Nichol rookery was razed in the same year as Morrison’s novel came out, which is, in a sense, a grim elegy. Before the place came down, he spent eighteen months in Shoreditch, immersing himself in its degradation.
The ‘child’ of the title is Dicky, whose father, Josh Perrott, is a good man fallen into drink. Dicky, out of self-preservation rather than inherent villainy, apprentices himself to the ’Igh Mob – the street gang that runs the Jago. He is taken in hand by the villainous fence Aaron Weech, a hymn-singing hypocrite.
Dicky makes some feeble attempts to reform under the influence of the saintly clergyman Father Sturt. But after his father murders Weech, and swings for it, Dicky’s downward path is unstoppable. He dies in a street knife-fight and ‘honourably’ declines to name his killer. Scenes such as the fight with broken bottles between Norah Walsh and Sally Green shocked reviewers, and still have the power to shock modern readers:
Norah Walsh, vanquished champion, now somewhat recovered, looked from a window, saw her enemy vulnerable, and ran out armed with a bottle. She stopped at the kerb to knock the bottom off the bottle, and then, with an exultant shout, seized Sally Green by the hair and stabbed her about the face with the jagged points. Blinded with blood, Sally released her hold on Mrs Perrott and rolled on her back, struggling fiercely; but to no end, for Norah Walsh, kneeling on her breast, stabbed and stabbed again, till pieces of the bottle broke away. Sally’s yells and plunges ceased, and a man pulled Norah off.
Morrison’s novel was much reprinted and can be credited with many narrative conventions which later become clichés in romances of the ‘Dead End Kids’ kind, in literature and on the screen. The bloody clan fights in the Jago, between the Ranns and Learys, can be detected as far away as Scorsese’s ultra-violent film Gangs of New York. And, of course, the South Central LA battles celebrated by rap artist Tupac Shakur.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 4, 2025
Famously labelled as the “sweater’s hell” in Sarah Wise’s The Blackest Street, the much dreaded Victorian Slum, Old Nichol, re-emerges as “the Jago, for one hundred years the blackest pit in London” in the 1896 novel A Child of the Jago by Arthur Morrison. When Morrison defines it as “a square of two hundred and fifty yards or less” it closely repaints Old Nichol with its people living a harrowing life, ever reluctant to grab any magic rope thrown on them as a way out of this blackest pit. The sheer innate inclination towards the inhabitants’ irredeemable taste for the evil luxuriated in low life is narrated through Dicky Perrot’s misery steeped in gut spluttering violence. But the significant question remains a debate. Was Old Nichol as savage as it’s represented in the novel? Or is it a distortion of the real Old Nichol as Henry Duff Traill remarked in his review? Or was the Old Nichol even drearier as Robert Blatchford of The Clarion opined.
We have known and read many such literary depictions of original places all through the centuries, but Morrison’s novel is considered as “one of the most impressive literary rebrandings of a district” as Sara Wise states in her review in London Fictions. The real Old Nichol’s demolition started during 1893 and in place rose the Boundary Street Estate from 1895. By the time Morrison began his novel in 1896 the Old Nichol had almost reached its closure. A century back the romantics warned against the “savage torpor” as a result of the mass migration of people from the country to the city owing to the growing industrialization. The Old Nichol slum is one such consequence as is said in the novel with people “too useless, incapable and corrupt—all that teemed in the Old Jago” (Morrison, 1896).
The novel orbits around the life of Dicky Perrot, who seems like a blurred shadow of Dickens’ Oliver Twist, but with a denouement very unlike the Dickensian ending of the rising glory from rags to riches. Dicky neither finds his salvage even in any of the impish ways advised by the character Old Beveridge; by getting imprisoned, or by execution or by joining the ‘Igh Mob’, a gang of criminals. Nor can he lessen the starvation of his family by thriving in the shopkeeper job offered by Mr Grinder under Father Strut’s recommendation. He wallows in a series of grim fates and is ultimately stabbed to death in a street fight.
We have known and read many such literary depictions of original places all through the centuries, but Morrison’s novel is considered as “one of the most impressive literary rebrandings of a district” as Sara Wise states in her review in London Fictions. The real Old Nichol’s demolition started during 1893 and in place rose the Boundary Street Estate from 1895. By the time Morrison began his novel in 1896 the Old Nichol had almost reached its closure. A century back the romantics warned against the “savage torpor” as a result of the mass migration of people from the country to the city owing to the growing industrialization. The Old Nichol slum is one such consequence as is said in the novel with people “too useless, incapable and corrupt—all that teemed in the Old Jago” (Morrison, 1896).
The novel orbits around the life of Dicky Perrot, who seems like a blurred shadow of Dickens’ Oliver Twist, but with a denouement very unlike the Dickensian ending of the rising glory from rags to riches. Dicky neither finds his salvage even in any of the impish ways advised by the character Old Beveridge; by getting imprisoned, or by execution or by joining the ‘Igh Mob’, a gang of criminals. Nor can he lessen the starvation of his family by thriving in the shopkeeper job offered by Mr Grinder under Father Strut’s recommendation. He wallows in a series of grim fates and is ultimately stabbed to death in a street fight.
October 23, 2022
'Plainly, Mr Weech's philosophy had been right after all. He was of the Jago, and he must prey on the outer world, as all the Jago did; not stray foolishly off the regular track in chase of visions, and fall headlong. Father Stuart was a creature of another mould. Who was he, Dicky Perrott, that he should break away from the Jago habit, and strain after another nature? What could come of it but defeat and bitterness? As old Beveridge had said, the Jago had got him. Why should he fight against the inevitable, and bruise himself?'
//
Past all the egregious ethnographic caricatures, Morrison does manage some nuanced critique of the ostensible 'interventions' staged in gentrifying one of London's most notorious late-19th-century slums.
There is a fascinating sense of predestination to the course of events, as time and again the Jago residents attempt to reconcile the two ideas of 'personal responsibility' – propagated (not wholly maliciously) by Father Stuart and the Salvation Army – and the larger, seemingly impenetrable material circumstances which create and perpetuate their poverty. There is, in a sense, a Jago Economy, and when the Jago itself is slowly ingrained into the wider City Economy – the slum land expropriated and privatised, and the displaced forced to pay rent – these two disparate economic boundaries do grate against one another. Within the Jago Economy, the inevitability of mass mutual exploitation and kleptomania is performed as sacrament, and while we see Dicky Perrott, at the root of the story, coming to terms with his being a 'Jago Rat', this tale is unmistakably more inclined to explore the nature of the nest.
//
Past all the egregious ethnographic caricatures, Morrison does manage some nuanced critique of the ostensible 'interventions' staged in gentrifying one of London's most notorious late-19th-century slums.
There is a fascinating sense of predestination to the course of events, as time and again the Jago residents attempt to reconcile the two ideas of 'personal responsibility' – propagated (not wholly maliciously) by Father Stuart and the Salvation Army – and the larger, seemingly impenetrable material circumstances which create and perpetuate their poverty. There is, in a sense, a Jago Economy, and when the Jago itself is slowly ingrained into the wider City Economy – the slum land expropriated and privatised, and the displaced forced to pay rent – these two disparate economic boundaries do grate against one another. Within the Jago Economy, the inevitability of mass mutual exploitation and kleptomania is performed as sacrament, and while we see Dicky Perrott, at the root of the story, coming to terms with his being a 'Jago Rat', this tale is unmistakably more inclined to explore the nature of the nest.
April 24, 2025
Morrison is a skilled writer but no historian although A Child of the Jago underlines Morrison's literary gifts. The portrayal of Bethnal Green and the people living there, the Jago, is fiction although no doubt their lives were very difficult. Morrison in his description of their lives is probably more distancing himself and a projection of his thoughts feelings having been born and brought up in the East End. Quite rightly he was criticised at the time for his depiction of the Jagos as ruffians and rogues. Some passages resemble aspects of Dickens, who was probably a key influence. It's understood Dickens' Oliver Twist is not a history text, but perhaps not always Morrison's A Child of the Jago. But in the way Oliver Twist sheds light on the harsher aspects of Victorian life, so too A Child of the Jago provided what's written isn't taken literally. And like Dickens' Oliver Twist, A Child of the Jago is a compelling read. Morrison makes the key characters come to life, Dickie Perrott, his mother Hanna and father, Josh, sibling Little Em and their struggle for existence and so too Father Sturt, characters like Pigeony Poe, Kiddo Cook, the despicable Mr Weech. Their fate though is more akin to a Shakespearean tragedy than a Dickens' story; A Child of the Jago not strictly history like any story by Dickens or a Shakespearean play, but great prose writing.
November 5, 2018
Very pleasantly surprised: what could have been moralistic, cringeworthily predictable or eastploitation, turned out to be exciting and engaging.
Why? Because the writer can actually write - this time not necessarily for the dialogue (which seemed pretty dialectically convincing if a little hard work to decipher in places) - but more for the plot development and real-seeming backdrops.
We’re left with a powerful sense of the protagonists’ resignation to fate and helplessness, which rings very true: from life in the Jago, everyday survival, mundane violence, to your inevitably untimely end. Coupled with an uncomplaining adherence to justice, duty and laws (of the community, not of the land).
There’s a lot of recognisable roots of modern British (southeastern, unmonied) society in here, and lots of glimpses of attitudes, situations and divisions that we still haven’t quite got rid of.
A fine read, giving back the true meaning of the “mean streets” (a phrase apparently coined by this author)...
Why? Because the writer can actually write - this time not necessarily for the dialogue (which seemed pretty dialectically convincing if a little hard work to decipher in places) - but more for the plot development and real-seeming backdrops.
We’re left with a powerful sense of the protagonists’ resignation to fate and helplessness, which rings very true: from life in the Jago, everyday survival, mundane violence, to your inevitably untimely end. Coupled with an uncomplaining adherence to justice, duty and laws (of the community, not of the land).
There’s a lot of recognisable roots of modern British (southeastern, unmonied) society in here, and lots of glimpses of attitudes, situations and divisions that we still haven’t quite got rid of.
A fine read, giving back the true meaning of the “mean streets” (a phrase apparently coined by this author)...
April 3, 2018
An unflinching tale about the incredible poverty and astonishing violence found within the inner Victorian London. At each turn, our characters are presented with events more brutal than the last, wrenching the heart strings of even the toughest cockney. Much like the inhabitants of the Jago, the reader is relentlessly battered over the head, not with a cosh, but with the unrelenting suffering that occurs within the Jago. Despite this, the book is one that illuminates the strength of family and friends even during such trying circumstances, living long in the memory of those who have read it.
A Child of the Jago was written over a hundred years ago, but the desperation found in these pages is still as relevant and shocking today as it was when it was first published. If you have a relative that appears to be turning to a life of crime, this novel is going to send them straight to the nearest religious establishment.
A Child of the Jago was written over a hundred years ago, but the desperation found in these pages is still as relevant and shocking today as it was when it was first published. If you have a relative that appears to be turning to a life of crime, this novel is going to send them straight to the nearest religious establishment.
March 24, 2019
I thought this book was pretty interesting. I mean, I guessed from the get-go that everything was going to end in absolute tragedy. It just feels like one of those books. I suppose, if you wanted to squint, you could suggest this is a gritty retelling of any novel that was written in the early Victorian period which seems to look for innate goodness in women and children. It is, however, a similar story to illustrator George Cruikshank's 'The Bottle' -- only about 150 pages longer.
So, that being said, there was still plenty of stuff that I really wasn't expecting. Primarily there's its very lurid depiction of violence and hopelessness in one of London's worst slum. There's no delightful Dickens-esque japes and gambols. There's no escape for Dicky, the main character, whose only hope of rising above a life of poverty It's a very bleak novel, as the story wears on into more and more hopelessness.
Ultimately, if I had to sum this up I'd say it's a good read for anyone who's a fan of Victorian literature. Imagine Oliver Twist, but every single character is Bill Sikes.
So, that being said, there was still plenty of stuff that I really wasn't expecting. Primarily there's its very lurid depiction of violence and hopelessness in one of London's worst slum. There's no delightful Dickens-esque japes and gambols. There's no escape for Dicky, the main character, whose only hope of rising above a life of poverty It's a very bleak novel, as the story wears on into more and more hopelessness.
Ultimately, if I had to sum this up I'd say it's a good read for anyone who's a fan of Victorian literature. Imagine Oliver Twist, but every single character is Bill Sikes.
November 24, 2022
Woah, I’ll never forget reading this. The plot and characters are so unique. This story is incredibly bleak and violent. Such a striking narrative. It’s very engaging (especially for a 19th century novel).
The Appendices and annotations are definitely interesting and helpful for putting the text in context. I was confused that the apparent underlying messages about Victorian lower/working classes were in direct opposition to the author’s perspective and intentions for the novel but that made it more fun to analyze.
Anyways, I highly recommend reading this if you have any interest in a dismal portrayal of the Victorian lower class from the perspective of a child as written by a man who started in the lower class but grew to hate it!
The Appendices and annotations are definitely interesting and helpful for putting the text in context. I was confused that the apparent underlying messages about Victorian lower/working classes were in direct opposition to the author’s perspective and intentions for the novel but that made it more fun to analyze.
Anyways, I highly recommend reading this if you have any interest in a dismal portrayal of the Victorian lower class from the perspective of a child as written by a man who started in the lower class but grew to hate it!
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