.gif)
Thomas Burke (author)
Encyclopedia
Thomas Burke was a British
author. He was born in Eltham, London
.
His 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.
"The Lamplit Hour", an incidental poem from Limehouse Nights, was set to music in the United States
by Arthur Penn in 1919. That same year, American film director
D. W. Griffith
used another tale from the collection, "The Chink and the Child" as the basis of his screenplay for the movie Broken Blossoms
. Griffith based his film Dream Street
(1921) on Burke's "Gina of Chinatown" and "Song of the Lamp".
, a southern suburb of London that by the turn of the century had fallen out of favor with the middle-classes. Burke’s father died when he was barely a few months old and he was eventually sent to live with his uncle in Poplar
. At the age of ten he was removed to a home for middle class boys who were “[r]espectably descended but without adequate means to their support.” When Burke turned sixteen he started working as an office boy, a job that he deeply detested. In 1901, he published his first professional written work entitled “The Bellamy Diamonds” in the magazine Spare Moments. He also edited some anthologies of children's poetry that were published in 1910-1913.
In 1915, Burke published Nights in Town: A London Autobiography, which featured his descriptions of working-class London nightlife including the essay, ‘A Chinese Night, Limehouse' However, it was not until the publication of Limehouse Nights in 1916 that he obtained any substantial acclaim as an author. This collection of melodramatic short stories, set in a lower-class environment populated by Chinese immigrants, was published in three British periodicals, The English Review, Colour and The New Witness, and received marked attention from literary reviewers. Limehouse Nights helped to earn Burke a reputation as “the laureate of London’s Chinatown.” Burke’s writing also influenced contemporary popular forms of entertainment, such as the nascent film industry. Indeed, D. W. Griffith used the short story “The Chink and the Child” from Limehouse Nights as the basis for his popular silent film Broken Blossoms (1919).
Burke continued to develop his descriptions of London life throughout his later literary works. He gradually expanded his range with novels such as The Sun in Splendor, which was published in 1926. He also continued to publish essays on the London environment, including pieces such as "The Real East End" and "London in My Times." Burke died in the Homeopathic Hospital in Queens Square, Bloomsbury
on September 22, 1945. His short story “The Hands of Ottermole” was later voted the best mystery of all time by critics in 1949.
These romanticized tales of Burke’s early life were often accepted by the literary critics of the day and went largely unchallenged by his contemporaries. Although Burke’s later writing, including the book Son of London more accurately describes his youth in the suburbs, the majority of his autobiogaphies attest to his supposedly intimate knowledge of lower-class life. These fabricated autobiographies enabled Burke to establish his authority as an expert on the Chinese in London, allowing him to create a persona that he used to market his fictional works on Limehouse. As Witchard notes, Burke, through his writing, positioned himself as a “seer” in an “occult process” of representing London’s sub-cultural ‘Others.’
in a declining British Empire
, Limehouse Nights aggravated already present anxieties. As critic Anne Witchard notes, the twentieth century Britain of Burke's lifetime propagated the idea of Yellow perilism, which saw the presence of the Chinese in London as a cause of "degenerative metropolitan blight and imperial and racial decline”. In no small part thanks to Burke and his contemporary, Sax Rohmer, what had been a largely unnoticed Chinese immigrant population now found itself under public scrutiny. The culmination of this negative attention was a hysteria in the late 1920s, centered around claims of “the hypnotism of white girls by yellow men”. In America, aided by D.W. Griffith’s adaptation of “The Chink and the Child,” the 1919 silent film Broken Blossoms, Burke’s reception was much more positive. Having so closely tied his literature to Limehouse, illuminating an otherwise shadowed community, it is somewhat ironic that Burke’s popularity correlated with the decline of Chinese concentration in the district, leaving him all but forgotten today.
. Even negative reviews tend to be tempered by acknowledgement for Burke’s craft. Critic Gilbert Seldes
, for instance, wrote:
More ecstatic reviewers echo critic Milton Bronner’s favorable comparison: “Not since the days when Kipling burst upon the English word has any writer displayed more sheer power and driving force”. Unlike Kipling, who wrote at the height of empire in distant India
, however, recent interpretation suggests Burke found critical success by bringing the exotic home, providing escape for a public caught in the unprecedented brutality of World War I.
Reviews of Burke's many other works are more mixed, and always overshadowed by the controversial and successful Limehouse Nights. Twinkletoes, published a year later in 1918, rode on the same wave of approval. More Limehouse Nights in 1921 was also generally well received, but Burke was increasingly criticized for repetition. As critic John Gunther remarked, “[it] may be true that London is big enough to stand nine books about her from one hand. But that hand should be a bigger one than Thomas Burke’s”. While critical interest in Burke is now typically sparse, when recognized he is still regarded favorably as a Modernist author.
with his non-fiction, journalistic representation of London streets and the people in them. Burke gained recognition with his first book, Nights In Town, in 1915. Limehouse Nights was his first popular success, though it was largely a repetition of the same material in Nights in Town, only in fiction form.
Burke has in fact used the same material to produce different genres of writing—as essays in Nights Town: A London Autobiography, as fictional short stories in Limehouse Nights, as a novel in Twinkletoes, and as poetry in The Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse. Though the majority of Burke’s writing was concerned with London, and more specifically the East End and the Limehouse district, Burke also published several eclectic and “uncharacteristic” pieces. With Night-Pieces (1935) and Murder at Elstree or Mr. Thurtell and His Gig, Burke tried his hand at horror fiction. In contrast to this, Burke also published The Beauty of England (1933) and The English Inn (1930), which depict England’s countryside, and The Outer Circle, which contains a series of ramblings about the London suburbs. In 1901 “The Bellamy Diamonds” was published in Spare Moments “which every week offered a guinea for the best short story sent in” (169).
and romanticism
. Burke’s first-hand knowledge (though overstated in his fictional autobiographies) and love for the city of London enabled Burke to write intimately about London life. Burke was also influenced by the work of Thomas de Quincy, and many of his writings that focus on the Limehouse district bear a resemblance to Quincy’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater.
filmmaker D. W. Griffith
used Burke’s short story "The Chink and the Child" from Limehouse Nights as basis for his silent film Broken Blossoms
(1919). The film was equivalent in size, style, and prominence to a contemporary blockbuster
. Griffith paid one thousand pounds for rights to the story, which was a huge sum at the time. This raised the public’s awareness of the Limehouse district and the poverty in London.
Other film adaptations have been based on Burke’s stories as well. Charlie Chaplin
derived A Dog’s Life (1918) from Limehouse Nights, and Burke’s book Twinkletoes (1926) was made into a movie of the same name, starring Colleen Moore
, Tully Marshall
, Gladys Brockwell
, Lucien Littlefield
, and Warner Oland
, directed by Charles Brabin
. Maurice Elvey
's Curlytop (1924) combines a number of Limehouse scenes and other stories of Burke’s were also used as material for Alfred Hitchcock Presents
.
Thomas Burke's later nonfictional works, as analyzed by Matt Houlbrook in Queer London, examine, if only in an indirect way, London's homosexual communities. In 1922, Burke published The London Spy: A Book of Town Travels, part of which describes the male homosexual relationship as existing within the public spaces of the city: "Only in the misty corners of the thickening streets…can [homosexual couples] attain the solitude they seek…For the young lover…the street is more private than the home.”
In 1937, Burke published For Your Convenience: A Learned Dialogue Instructive to all Londoners and London Visitors. Burke's nonfictional account, according to Houlbrook, “offers an ironic—if heavily veiled—indictment of contemporary sexual mores", and again establishes public, rather than private spaces, particularly urinals, as the sites of homosexual desire. By providing a verbal and visual map of London with the locations of urinals clearly marked, Burke “[formalizes] men’s knowledge of these sexual possibilities” and “[codifies] their knowledge of the tactics needed to use these sites safely”. Burke's work as an urban observer thus allows him to map the public world of London’s queer and to reflect upon the extent to which interaction with London's public landmarks engaged homosexual communities in an historical narrative of identity formation.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
author. He was born in Eltham, 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...
.
His first successful publication was Limehouse Nights (1916), a collection of stories centered around life in the poverty-stricken Limehouse
Limehouse
Limehouse is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is on the northern bank of the River Thames opposite Rotherhithe and between Ratcliff to the west and Millwall to the east....
district of London. Many of Burke's books feature the Chinese character Quong Lee as narrator.
"The Lamplit Hour", an incidental poem from Limehouse Nights, was set to music in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
by Arthur Penn in 1919. That same year, American film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
D. W. Griffith
D. W. Griffith
David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
used another tale from the collection, "The Chink and the Child" as the basis of his screenplay for the movie Broken Blossoms
Broken Blossoms
Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl is a 1919 silent film directed by D.W. Griffith. It was distributed by United Artists and premiered on May 13, 1919...
. Griffith based his film Dream Street
Dream Street (film)
Dream Street is a silent movie directed by D. W. Griffith, and starring Carol Dempster, Charles Emmett Mack, and Ralph Graves in a story about a love triangle set in London, and based on two short stories by Thomas Burke, "Gina of Chinatown" and "Song of the Lamp"...
(1921) on Burke's "Gina of Chinatown" and "Song of the Lamp".
Life
Thomas Burke was born Sydney Thomas Burke on 29 November 1886 in ClaphamClapham
Clapham is a district in south London, England, within the London Borough of Lambeth.Clapham covers the postcodes of SW4 and parts of SW9, SW8 and SW12. Clapham Common is shared with the London Borough of Wandsworth, although Lambeth has responsibility for running the common as a whole. According...
, a southern suburb of London that by the turn of the century had fallen out of favor with the middle-classes. Burke’s father died when he was barely a few months old and he was eventually sent to live with his uncle in Poplar
Poplar, London
Poplar is a historic, mainly residential area of the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is about east of Charing Cross. Historically a hamlet in the parish of Stepney, Middlesex, in 1817 Poplar became a civil parish. In 1855 the Poplar District of the Metropolis was...
. At the age of ten he was removed to a home for middle class boys who were “[r]espectably descended but without adequate means to their support.” When Burke turned sixteen he started working as an office boy, a job that he deeply detested. In 1901, he published his first professional written work entitled “The Bellamy Diamonds” in the magazine Spare Moments. He also edited some anthologies of children's poetry that were published in 1910-1913.
Burke continued to develop his descriptions of London life throughout his later literary works. He gradually expanded his range with novels such as The Sun in Splendor, which was published in 1926. He also continued to publish essays on the London environment, including pieces such as "The Real East End" and "London in My Times." Burke died in the Homeopathic Hospital in Queens Square, Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury
-Places:* Bloomsbury is an area in central London.* Bloomsbury , related local government unit* Bloomsbury, New Jersey, New Jersey, USA* Bloomsbury , listed on the NRHP in Maryland...
on September 22, 1945. His short story “The Hands of Ottermole” was later voted the best mystery of all time by critics in 1949.
Biographical inaccuracies
Any attempt to accurately describe Thomas Burke’s life is severely complicated by the many fictionalized accounts of his youth that circulated widely during his lifetime. Burke himself was principally responsible for fabricating and disseminating these autobiographical stories, which he used to bolster his authorial claim to an intimate knowledge of life among the lower-classes. As literary critic Anne Witchard notes, most of what we know about Burke’s life is based on works that “purport to be autobiographical [and] yet contain far more invention than truth.” For instance, although he grew up in the suburbs, Thomas Burke claims in his autobiographical novel The Wind and the Rain: A Book of Confessions (1924) to have been born and raised in the East End, a lower-working class area of London. Furthermore, in this work he states that while growing up as an orphan in the East End he befriended a Chinese shopkeeper named Quong Lee from whom he learned about Chinese life in London. Burke also told newspaper reporters that he had “sat at the feet of Chinese philosophers who kept opium dens to learn from the lips that could frame only broken English, the secrets, good and evil, of the mysterious East.”These romanticized tales of Burke’s early life were often accepted by the literary critics of the day and went largely unchallenged by his contemporaries. Although Burke’s later writing, including the book Son of London more accurately describes his youth in the suburbs, the majority of his autobiogaphies attest to his supposedly intimate knowledge of lower-class life. These fabricated autobiographies enabled Burke to establish his authority as an expert on the Chinese in London, allowing him to create a persona that he used to market his fictional works on Limehouse. As Witchard notes, Burke, through his writing, positioned himself as a “seer” in an “occult process” of representing London’s sub-cultural ‘Others.’
Public
Despite a long list of works, recognition of Burke largely concerns Limehouse Nights, his second book of London stories. Published in 1917, Burke’s gritty tales of London’s Chinatown ignited immediate controversy. The book was initially banned by circulating libraries, not only on grounds of general immorality, but also for the scandalous interracial relationships portrayed between Chinese men and white women. Set during World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
in a declining British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
, Limehouse Nights aggravated already present anxieties. As critic Anne Witchard notes, the twentieth century Britain of Burke's lifetime propagated the idea of Yellow perilism, which saw the presence of the Chinese in London as a cause of "degenerative metropolitan blight and imperial and racial decline”. In no small part thanks to Burke and his contemporary, Sax Rohmer, what had been a largely unnoticed Chinese immigrant population now found itself under public scrutiny. The culmination of this negative attention was a hysteria in the late 1920s, centered around claims of “the hypnotism of white girls by yellow men”. In America, aided by D.W. Griffith’s adaptation of “The Chink and the Child,” the 1919 silent film Broken Blossoms, Burke’s reception was much more positive. Having so closely tied his literature to Limehouse, illuminating an otherwise shadowed community, it is somewhat ironic that Burke’s popularity correlated with the decline of Chinese concentration in the district, leaving him all but forgotten today.
Critical
Burke’s critical reception is as concentrated on Limehouse Nights as his public reception. Consensus is largely positive, praise coming from such notable authors as H.G. Wells and Arnold BennettArnold Bennett
- Early life :Bennett was born in a modest house in Hanley in the Potteries district of Staffordshire. Hanley is one of a conurbation of six towns which joined together at the beginning of the twentieth century as Stoke-on-Trent. Enoch Bennett, his father, qualified as a solicitor in 1876, and the...
. Even negative reviews tend to be tempered by acknowledgement for Burke’s craft. Critic Gilbert Seldes
Gilbert Seldes
Gilbert Vivian Seldes was an American writer and cultural critic. He was editor and drama critic of The Dial. He also hosted the NBC television program The Subject is Jazz....
, for instance, wrote:
“Possibly Mr. Burke’s books, at once vigorous and wanton, may be respected afterward; one fears only that they will be found a little purposeless, a little lacking in social direction. It is that lack, of course, which makes them so attractive. For, it may be mentioned, these are wonderfully good things to read.”
More ecstatic reviewers echo critic Milton Bronner’s favorable comparison: “Not since the days when Kipling burst upon the English word has any writer displayed more sheer power and driving force”. Unlike Kipling, who wrote at the height of empire in distant India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, however, recent interpretation suggests Burke found critical success by bringing the exotic home, providing escape for a public caught in the unprecedented brutality of World War I.
Reviews of Burke's many other works are more mixed, and always overshadowed by the controversial and successful Limehouse Nights. Twinkletoes, published a year later in 1918, rode on the same wave of approval. More Limehouse Nights in 1921 was also generally well received, but Burke was increasingly criticized for repetition. As critic John Gunther remarked, “[it] may be true that London is big enough to stand nine books about her from one hand. But that hand should be a bigger one than Thomas Burke’s”. While critical interest in Burke is now typically sparse, when recognized he is still regarded favorably as a Modernist author.
Literary works
Thomas Burke considered himself to be a true Londoner both by birth and in spirit, and the large majority of his writings are concerned with the everyday life in London. The settings and peoples of working class London became an important element in Burke’s work, and lower class setting and character ‘types’ are repeatedly used in both his fictional and non-fictional essays. Burke’s writing follows in the tradition of James Greenwood and Jack LondonJack London
John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone...
with his non-fiction, journalistic representation of London streets and the people in them. Burke gained recognition with his first book, Nights In Town, in 1915. Limehouse Nights was his first popular success, though it was largely a repetition of the same material in Nights in Town, only in fiction form.
Burke has in fact used the same material to produce different genres of writing—as essays in Nights Town: A London Autobiography, as fictional short stories in Limehouse Nights, as a novel in Twinkletoes, and as poetry in The Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse. Though the majority of Burke’s writing was concerned with London, and more specifically the East End and the Limehouse district, Burke also published several eclectic and “uncharacteristic” pieces. With Night-Pieces (1935) and Murder at Elstree or Mr. Thurtell and His Gig, Burke tried his hand at horror fiction. In contrast to this, Burke also published The Beauty of England (1933) and The English Inn (1930), which depict England’s countryside, and The Outer Circle, which contains a series of ramblings about the London suburbs. In 1901 “The Bellamy Diamonds” was published in Spare Moments “which every week offered a guinea for the best short story sent in” (169).
Limehouse Nights and literary style
Burke’s writing blends several styles in order to create a dramatic portrait of London. Limehouse Nights and its various sequels classified Burke as a “purveyor of melodramatic stories of lust and murder among London’s lower classes”. Both his essays and fiction, focusing particularly on Limehouse Nights, are characterized, seemingly paradoxically, with harsh realities and more romanticized, poetic outlooks. Ultimately, Burke’s style is that of a blend of realismLiterary realism
Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...
and romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
. Burke’s first-hand knowledge (though overstated in his fictional autobiographies) and love for the city of London enabled Burke to write intimately about London life. Burke was also influenced by the work of Thomas de Quincy, and many of his writings that focus on the Limehouse district bear a resemblance to Quincy’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater.
D. W. Griffith and Burke's influence on film
The AmericanUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
filmmaker D. W. Griffith
D. W. Griffith
David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
used Burke’s short story "The Chink and the Child" from Limehouse Nights as basis for his silent film Broken Blossoms
Broken Blossoms
Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl is a 1919 silent film directed by D.W. Griffith. It was distributed by United Artists and premiered on May 13, 1919...
(1919). The film was equivalent in size, style, and prominence to a contemporary blockbuster
Blockbuster (entertainment)
Blockbuster, as applied to film or theatre, denotes a very popular or successful production. The entertainment industry use was originally theatrical slang referring to a particularly successful play but is now used primarily by the film industry...
. Griffith paid one thousand pounds for rights to the story, which was a huge sum at the time. This raised the public’s awareness of the Limehouse district and the poverty in London.
Other film adaptations have been based on Burke’s stories as well. Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
derived A Dog’s Life (1918) from Limehouse Nights, and Burke’s book Twinkletoes (1926) was made into a movie of the same name, starring Colleen Moore
Colleen Moore
Colleen Moore was an American film actress, and one of the most fashionable stars of the silent film era.-Early life:...
, Tully Marshall
Tully Marshall
William Phillips was an American character actor known as Tully Marshall, with nearly a quarter century of theatrical experience behind before he made his first film appearance in 1914.-Career:...
, Gladys Brockwell
Gladys Brockwell
Gladys Brockwell was an American actress whose career began during the silent film era.-Early life:Born Gladys Lindeman in Brooklyn, New York, she was the daughter of a chorus girl who put her on stage at a very early age. By the time she reached her middle teens, she was already a veteran and...
, Lucien Littlefield
Lucien Littlefield
Lucien Littlefield was an American actor in the silent film era...
, and Warner Oland
Warner Oland
Warner Oland was a Swedish American actor most remembered for his screen role as the detective Charlie Chan.-Biography:He was born Johan Verner Ölund in the village of Nyby, Bjurholm Municipality,...
, directed by Charles Brabin
Charles Brabin
Charles J. Brabin was an American film director and screenwriter. He was active during the silent era, then pursued a short-lived career in talkies....
. Maurice Elvey
Maurice Elvey
Maurice Elvey was the most prolific film director in British history. He directed nearly 200 films between 1913 and 1957. During the silent film era he directed as many as twenty films per year....
's Curlytop (1924) combines a number of Limehouse scenes and other stories of Burke’s were also used as material for Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...
.
Nonfiction works
In addition to his autobiographical Nights in Town, Thomas Burke wrote a non-fictional account of Chinatown in his book Out and About. In the chapter entitled "Chinatown Revisited" Burke elaborates on a visit in 1919 to the Limehouse district. While there with a friend, Coburn, Burke discovers that the Limehouse he wrote about in Limehouse Nights has disappeared. He explains that the crime, sex, and violence characteristic of Limehouse has been regulated by the local police. No longer present was the life of the Chinese district that Burke had created. As he notes, "the glamorous shame of Chinatown has departed".Thomas Burke's later nonfictional works, as analyzed by Matt Houlbrook in Queer London, examine, if only in an indirect way, London's homosexual communities. In 1922, Burke published The London Spy: A Book of Town Travels, part of which describes the male homosexual relationship as existing within the public spaces of the city: "Only in the misty corners of the thickening streets…can [homosexual couples] attain the solitude they seek…For the young lover…the street is more private than the home.”
In 1937, Burke published For Your Convenience: A Learned Dialogue Instructive to all Londoners and London Visitors. Burke's nonfictional account, according to Houlbrook, “offers an ironic—if heavily veiled—indictment of contemporary sexual mores", and again establishes public, rather than private spaces, particularly urinals, as the sites of homosexual desire. By providing a verbal and visual map of London with the locations of urinals clearly marked, Burke “[formalizes] men’s knowledge of these sexual possibilities” and “[codifies] their knowledge of the tactics needed to use these sites safely”. Burke's work as an urban observer thus allows him to map the public world of London’s queer and to reflect upon the extent to which interaction with London's public landmarks engaged homosexual communities in an historical narrative of identity formation.
Secondary bibliography
- R. Thurston Hopkins, "In the Footsteps of Thomas Burke", Chapter XIII of London Pilgrimages (London: Brentano’s, 1928), pp. 193–210.
- Barry Milligan, Pleasures and Pains: Opium and the Orient in Nineteenth-Century British Culture (Charlottesville & London: UP of Virginia, 1995).
- George A. Wade, "The Cockney John Chinaman", The English Illustrated Magazine (July 1900): 301-07.
- Anne Witchard, "Aspects of Literary Limehouse: Thomas Burke and the ‘Glamorous Shame of Chinatown", Literary London: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Representation of London, 2, 2 (September 2004): 7 pp. http://homepages.gold.ac.uk/london-journal/september%202004/witchard.html.
- "Thomas Burke, the ‘Laureate of Limehouse’: A New Biographical Outline", English Literature in Transition, 48, 2 (January 2005):