Arthur Morrison is best known for his detective stories and his tales of the mean streets of the crowded and desperate slums of the East End of London. His work in both genres was highly regarded; yet he largely retired from writing fiction by 1910 and died in obscurity in 1945. Many people at that time were surprised to discover that he had not died decades earlier.

Morrison was born on 1 November 1863 to Richard Morrison and Jane Cooper Morrison. Although he later asserted that he was born in Kent and that his father was an engineer, he was, in fact, born in the East End, and his father was an engine fitter. The family may have lived in Kent at some point in Morrison's childhood, and an engine fitter may be described as an engineer, but Morrison clearly was trying to separate himself from his humble beginnings. The slums he...