Thomas Burke (author)

Thomas Burke (November, 1886 – September 22, 1945) 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 John 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".

Bibliography

Fiction

* "The Bloomsbury Wonder". London: Mandrake Press, 1929.
* "Broken Blossoms: a selection of stories from Limehouse Nights." London, 1920.
* "Dark Nights". London: Herbert Jenkins, [1944] . Includes novelette "The Bloomsbury Wonder."
* "East of Mansion House". London: Cassell, 1928 New York: Doran, 1926.
* "The Flower of Life". Boston: Little, Brown, 1931.Constable, 1929.
* "The Golden Gong and Other Night-Pieces". Ed. Jessica Amanda Salmonson. Afterword reminiscence by Grant Richards. Ashcroft: Ash_Tree Press, 2001. Only 600 copies. Collects 20 tales from Night Pieces and other collections.
* "Go Lovely Rose". Brooklyn, N. Y.: Sesphra Library, 1931. "This edition consists of 110 copies of which 100 are for sale, and the type has been distributed."
* "Limehouse Nights". London: Grant Richards, 1917. Reprinted by Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1969.
* "More Limehouse Nights". New York: George H. Doran, 1921.
* "Night Pieces: Eighteen Tales". London: Constable, 1935. Reprinted by Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1971.
* "The Pleasantries of Old Quong". London: Constable, 1931. Published in US as A Tea-Shop in Limehouse. Boston: Little, Brown, 1931. Reprinted by Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1972 (Short Story Index Reprint Series). "A Tea-Shop in Limehouse" also reprinted in this series, 1969.
* "The Sun in Splendour". London: Constable, 1927. New York: George H. Doran, 1926.
* "Twinkletoes: a Tale of Limehouse". New York: Robert M. McBride, 1918.
* "Whispering Windows: Tales of the Waterside". London: Grant Richards, 1921.
* "The Wind and the Rain: A Book of Confessions". London: Thornton Butterworth, 1924. New York: Doran, 1924.

Non-fiction

* "The Beauty of England". London: Harrap, 1933.
* "The Book of the Inn, being two hundred pictures of the English inn from the earliest times to the coming of the railway hotel". Selected and edited by Thomas Burke. New York: George H. Doran, 1927. English edition, Constable, 1927.
* "The Charm of England:" An Anthology compiled and edited by Thomas Burke. London: Truslove and Hanson, n.d. [1914] .
* "Dinner is served! or, Eating round the world in London, being a brief glance, for the benefit of visitors, at the many ways and means of dining in London; from the fashionable restaurants of great reputation, through the various grill rooms, and the assorted nationalities of Soho, to the old chop houses and the more dainty snack bars. With some observations on the gastronomical customs of past and present; brief sketches of each kind of restaurant; and a note of any special dishes peculiar to this or that restaurant." London: G. Routledge, 1937.
* "The Ecstasies of Thomas De Quincey". Chosen by Thomas Burke. London:
* "The English Inn". London/New York: Longmans, Green, 1930.
* "The English Inn". With 24 photographs by Will F. Taylor and a pencil sketch by Edmond C. Warre. Introduction by A. P. Herbert. Illustrated edition. London/New York: Longmans, Green, 1931. Re-issue, revised. Country Books. London, 1947.
* "English Inns". With 8 plates in colour and 24 illustrations in black and white. London: Collins, 1943.
* "English Night-Life; from Norman curfew to present black-out". London: Batsford, 1941.
* "The English Townsman as he was and as he is". London: Batsford, 1946.
* "Essays of Today and Yesterday". London: George Harrap, 1928.
* "Introducing Britain". By K. Johnstone, T. Burke, H. B. Brennan etc. London, 1938. Revised 2nd ed., 1946.
* "Living in Bloomsbury". London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1939.
* "London In My Time". London: Rich & Cowan, 1934.
* "The London Spy: A Book of Town Travels". London: Thornton Butterworth, 1922.
* "Murder at Elstree; or, Mr. Thurtell and his gig". London/New York: Longmans, Green, 1936.
* "Nights in London". New York: Henry Holt, 1916.
* "Nights in Town: A London Autobiography". London: Allen & Unwin, 1915.
* "Out and About: A Notebook of London in Wartime". London: Allen & Unwin, 1919. Includes short story, "The Kid’s Man."
* "The Real East End". Text by Thomas Burke. Lithographs by Pearl Binder. London: Constable, 1932.
* "Son of London". London: Herbert Jenkins, 1946.
* "The Streets of London through the centuries". New York: Scribner’s/London: Batsford, 1940. Also Batsford, 1949. Batsford, 1941.
* "Travel in England: from pilgrim and pack-horse to light car and plane". London: Batsford, 1942. Also Batsford, 1949.
* "Voices on the Green". London: Michael Joseph, 1945. Anthology of original fiction, verse, song and art produced as a fund-raising project for the St. Mary’s Hospital for Women and Children. Conatins fiction by André Maurois, J. L. Hudson, Burke, James Laver, Frank Swinnerton, John Brophy, Marjorie Bowen etc.
* "Will someone lead me to a pub?: Being a Note upon certain of the Taverns, old and new, of "London"; Presenting something of their Story, their Company, and their Quiddity. Which may entertain Those at Home, and may cause a Spasm of Nostalgia in the Breasts of Englishmen in the Dominions, the Dependencies, and the lonely Out-posts of our Far-Flung etc., where To-day, as in Kipling’s Day, Men sit Swapping Lies about the Purple East, and when they tire of that, talk in the sour-sweet Accents of the Exile, of their Favourite London Bars". Illustrated by Frederick Carter. London: George Routledge, 1936.
* "The Wind and the Rain: a book of confessions". Ed. limited to 100 copies. London: Guernsey Press, 1925.

Poetry

* "The Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse". London: Allen & Unwin, 1920. New York: Holt, 1920. 66 poems supposedly written by Quong Lee.

Introductions etc.

* "Jack McLaren, My Odyssey". With a preface by Thomas Burke. 2nd ed. revised. London, 1928.

econdary 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/witchard.html.
* "Thomas Burke, the ‘Laureate of Limehouse’: A New Biographical Outline", "English Literature in Transition", 48, 2 (January 2005):

External links

*

Persondata
NAME= Burke, Thomas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=British author
DATE OF BIRTH=November, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH=Eltham, London, England, United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH=September 22, 1945
PLACE OF DEATH=