A child of the jago (Arthur Morrison)

„A Child of the Jago” is London-born journalist Arthur Morrison’s best known novel. It was first published in November 1896 and is set in a fictional East End slum known as the Jago, which Morrison based a real district called the Old Nichol. The novel recounts the brief life of Dicky Perrott, who is at heart full of humane instinct but his environment ensures his down fall. The Perrott family, and their friends and enemies, must struggle for their very survival in the harsh environment they live within. Tension and desperation amid the crime and roughness is constant in the overcrowded slums of the East End, with fortune hard to come by and danger ever present. The author, who rejected the label „realist”, doesn’t minimize the violence of the community and „A Child of the Jago” is an exciting tale indeed.