Arthur George Morrison was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 and journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 known for his realistic novels about London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

's East End

East End of London

The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...

 and for his detective stories

Detective fiction

Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.-In ancient literature:...

.

Morrison was born in Poplar, in the East End of London, on 1 November 1863. Little is known about his childhood and education, though he was probably educated in the East End. By 1886 he was working as a clerk at the People's Palace

Queen Mary, University of London

Queen Mary, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

, in Mile End

Mile End

Mile End is an area within the East End of London, England, and part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is located east-northeast of Charing Cross...

. In 1890 he left this job and joined the editorial staff of the Globe

The Globe (London newspaper)

The Globe was a British London newspaper founded in 1803 and merged with the Pall Mall Gazette in 1921....

newspaper. The following year he published a story entitled A Street which was subsequently published in book form in Tales of Mean Streets. The volume was a critical success, but a number of reviewers objected to the violence portrayed in one story, Lizerunt.

Around this time Morrison was also producing detective short stories which emulated those of Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...

 about Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...

. Morrison's Martin Hewitt was an imitation of Sherlock Holmes, but inverted: he was ordinary, short, and good tempered and gladly cooperated with the police. The twist was that he played both ends against the middle, sometimes as crooked as the criminals.

Three volumes of Hewitt stories were published before the publication of the novel for which Morrison is most famous: A Child of the Jago (1896). The novel described in graphic detail living conditions in the East End

East End of London

The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...

, including the permeation of violence into everyday life (it was a barely fictionalised account of life in the Old Nichol Street Rookery). Other, less well-received novels and stories followed, until Morrison effectively retired from writing fiction, around 1913. Between then and his death, he concentrated on building his collection of Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese prints and paintings.

He lived near Epping Forest

Epping Forest

Epping Forest is an area of ancient woodland in south-east England, straddling the border between north-east Greater London and Essex. It is a former royal forest, and is managed by the City of London Corporation....

, at Chingford

Chingford

Chingford is a district of north east London, bordering on Enfield and Edmonton to the west, Woodford to the east, Walthamstow and Stratford to the south and Essex to the north. It is situated northeast of Charing Cross and forms part of the London Borough of Waltham Forest...

; then Loughton

Loughton

Loughton is a town and civil parish in the Epping Forest district of Essex. It is located between 11 and 13 miles north east of Charing Cross in London, south of the M25 and west of the M11 motorway and has boundaries with Chingford, Waltham Abbey, Theydon Bois, Chigwell and Buckhurst Hill...

 (commemorated by a Blue Plaque

Blue plaque

A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person or event, serving as a historical marker....

); and High Beach

High Beach

High Beach also known as High Beech is a hamlet located within Epping Forest. Epping is located to the north east and Central London at Charing Cross lies approximately to the south west.-Description:...

, where he is buried in the churchyard.

The Arthur Morrison Society was formed in 2007. The Society's first public event was on 18 April 2009, with a Loughton Festival talk by Tim Clark (The British Museum) about Morrison's Japanese print collection.

The 2011 Loughton Festival talk will be held on 16 April at St Mary's Church, Loughton, Essex as part of a two-talk event. Please see the Loughton Festival website for more details: www.loughtonfestival.org

Literary works

• Tales of Mean Streets (1894)
• Martin Hewitt, Investigator (1894)
• The Chronicles of Martin Hewitt (1895)
• The Adventures of Martin Hewitt (1896)
• A Child of the Jago (1896)
• The Dorrington Deed Box (1897)
• To London Town (1899)
• Cunning Murrell (1900)
• The Hole in the Wall (1902)
• The Red Triangle (1903)
• The Green Eye of Goona - The Green Diamond (US title) (1904)
• Divers Vanities (1905)
• Green Ginger (1909)
• Fiddle O'Dreams And More (1933)

External links

• Arthur Morrison Bio and Detective Hewitt Stories Illustrated by Sidney Paget
• Works by Arthur Morrison at Project Gutenberg Australia
• Loughton Festival
• The Arthur Morrison Society
• The Jago: the blackest pit in London Radio 4, broadcast 1985
• "Horace Dorrington, Criminal-Detective: Investigating the Re-Emergence of the Rogue in Arthur Morrison's The Dorrington Deed-Box (1897)" by Clare Clarke, Clues: A Journal of Detection 28.2 (2010)