Arthur Morrison

A Child of the Jago Annotated Arthur Morrison

The novel recounts the brief life of Dickey Perrot, a child growing up in the "Old Jago", a fictionalization of the Old Nichol, a slum in the East End of London. The novel opens after midnight on a hot summer night, when many of the residents of the Jago, likened to "great rats", prefer to sleep in the street to avoid the oppressive heat and stench of the closely packed houses. A man lured into a dwelling by a woman is brutally cashed, robbed and dragged unconscious into the street where others remove his boots. Dickey Perrot, 8 or 9 years old makes his way home to the single room in which his family dwells, where he finds his mother, Hannah Perrott and flea-bitten baby sister, Looey, but only a crust of bread to eat. As dawn breaks his father, Josh Perrott, returns home with a club sticky with blood and hair, suggesting another robbery. A bestseller in its time, it recounts the brief life of Dicky Perrott, a child growing up in the "Old Jago", a fictionalization of the Old Nichol, a slum located between Shore ditch High Street and Bethan Green Road in the East End of London. The late nineteenth century English novelist George Gissing, who read the novel on Christmas Day 1896, felt that it was "poor stuff".