Arthur Morrison

1863-1945

Best known for his realistic stories about the London slums and for his detective stories featuring Martin Hewitt, Arthur Morrison was born in London’s East End. His father, an engine fitter, died early from tuberculosis, leaving his mother alone to raise the young Morrison along with his two siblings. Mainly self-taught, at the age of 23, Morrison found employment as a secretary of the Beaumont Trust, the charity that administered the People’s Palace, a cultural and vocational centre for the lower classes. Later, he became assistant editor of the People’s Palace Journal, working together with its founder and chief editor, Walter Besant. He started writing as a journalist for The Evening Globe and as a freelance journalist for other major magazines. In 1892, he became a regular contributor to the National Observer, which published most of the stories of his first major work, Tales of Mean Streets (1894). In the same year, he published his first short story collection featuring the detective Martin Hewitt, considered the most successful rival to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.