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Night-Pieces: Eighteen Tales
Perhaps no writer of the early 20th century had a better knowledge of London than Thomas Burke (1886-1945), and his collection Night-Pieces (1935) contains eighteen of his most haunting tales of that immense city's dark back alleys, shadowy courts, and mysterious houses. In Burke's London, anything might happen. You might turn round a corner and find yourself back in your childhood. A casual drink with a stranger might end with you - quite literally - losing your head. That pale, slightly sinister-looking man sitting across the restaurant might be a murdered corpse, returned from the dead. And those footsteps you hear following you as you walk along a foggy street, faintly lit by gaslight ... well, let's just say you had better not look behind you ...
A groundbreaking and undeservedly neglected volume, Night-Pieces contains a wide variety of weird and outré tales, ranging from stories of crime and murder to tales of ghosts, zombies, and the supernatural. This is the first unabridged reprint of Burke's collection since its original appearance and reproduces the jacket art of the first British edition.
"An artist for whom I have always entertained a great admiration ... This is a volume of really good short stories." - Gerald Gould, Observer
"A master of the psychology of fear, of the torments of the crime-burdened conscience ... 'The Lonely Inn' is close to a masterpiece." - The American Mercury
"His talent is as great as ever ... in even the eeriest of them there is more fascination than horror ... excellent." - Guardian
A groundbreaking and undeservedly neglected volume, Night-Pieces contains a wide variety of weird and outré tales, ranging from stories of crime and murder to tales of ghosts, zombies, and the supernatural. This is the first unabridged reprint of Burke's collection since its original appearance and reproduces the jacket art of the first British edition.
"An artist for whom I have always entertained a great admiration ... This is a volume of really good short stories." - Gerald Gould, Observer
"A master of the psychology of fear, of the torments of the crime-burdened conscience ... 'The Lonely Inn' is close to a masterpiece." - The American Mercury
"His talent is as great as ever ... in even the eeriest of them there is more fascination than horror ... excellent." - Guardian
- GenresHorrorCollections
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1935
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85 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Burke
250 books11 followersHis 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.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_B...
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_B...
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 1, 2016
once again, you can scoot over to the reading journal clicking here, or just read the short version.
Returning to short-story form once again, last night I finished Night-Pieces, a lovely little book of eighteen tales by Thomas Burke. Burke is quite well known for his Limehouse Nights, but Night-Pieces is my introduction to this author. This book was definitely aaahh inspiring -- it's a mix of stories that include crime and the supernatural -- I mean, really. It's me on a plate.
I was drawn in right off the bat with the first story, "Miracle in Suburbia," a tale with a great twist, one that set the tone for the good things that were about to come my way. And come my way they did. One thing really sticks out here -- in every single story that's in this book, somehow landscape, be it urban or rural, has some sort of role to play either actively or passively, with most of these stories taking place on London streets. It's very clear that Burke has some sort of affinity with and love for this city; a brief look at other books by this author reveals titles that include The Streets of London, Rambles in Remote London, Nights in London, etc. And as I read through each and every story that played out on these streets, I found myself visualizing them, which is a sign of a good writer. A second and very important thing is that Burke seems to know the darker side of human nature quite well, and this also becomes very obvious in pretty much every story in this book.
It depends on what you like, of course, but all in all, I found Night-Pieces to be a fantastic collection that any lover of older British dark tales should read. While it's definitely a mixed bag where genre is concerned, it ends up not mattering one whit since they all seem to blend nicely together here because of Burke's atmospheric writing style.
Highly recommended for fans of older, dark fiction.
Returning to short-story form once again, last night I finished Night-Pieces, a lovely little book of eighteen tales by Thomas Burke. Burke is quite well known for his Limehouse Nights, but Night-Pieces is my introduction to this author. This book was definitely aaahh inspiring -- it's a mix of stories that include crime and the supernatural -- I mean, really. It's me on a plate.
I was drawn in right off the bat with the first story, "Miracle in Suburbia," a tale with a great twist, one that set the tone for the good things that were about to come my way. And come my way they did. One thing really sticks out here -- in every single story that's in this book, somehow landscape, be it urban or rural, has some sort of role to play either actively or passively, with most of these stories taking place on London streets. It's very clear that Burke has some sort of affinity with and love for this city; a brief look at other books by this author reveals titles that include The Streets of London, Rambles in Remote London, Nights in London, etc. And as I read through each and every story that played out on these streets, I found myself visualizing them, which is a sign of a good writer. A second and very important thing is that Burke seems to know the darker side of human nature quite well, and this also becomes very obvious in pretty much every story in this book.
It depends on what you like, of course, but all in all, I found Night-Pieces to be a fantastic collection that any lover of older British dark tales should read. While it's definitely a mixed bag where genre is concerned, it ends up not mattering one whit since they all seem to blend nicely together here because of Burke's atmospheric writing style.
Highly recommended for fans of older, dark fiction.
April 21, 2019
As with any anthology, it's a mixed bag. Think of the sort of thing you'd see on Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock Presents and those are the kinds of stories these are.
February 21, 2022
I've seen the short stories in this impulse purchase described as "Twilight Zone"-like, and that seems pretty fair! I think the 1930s are getting late for me, even in weird fiction. Of course there are many exceptions, but I once took a class on the literature of the '30s, in which we read things like "Brighton Rock" and "Love on the Dole," with a style of realism that was sort of depressing and dispiriting, and there's a bit of that here. I didn't hate it, but it wasn't really my kind of thing.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews