'A Child of the Jago' is both thriller and condemnation of social conditions in the East End slums at the turn of the century. Boy hero Dicky Perrott is at heart full of humane instinct but his environment ensures his down fall. "It was my fate to encounter a place in Shoreditch where children were born and reared in circumstances which gave them no reasonable chance of living decent lives: where they were born fore-damned to a criminal or semi criminal career. It was my experience to learn the ways of this place, to know its inhabitants, to talk with them, eat, drink and work with them." The author, who rejected the label 'realist', doesn't minimise the violence of the community and 'A Child of the Jago' is an exciting tale indeed.

Arthur George Morrison (1863-1945) was an English author and journalist, known for his realistic novels about London's East End and for his detective stories. Morrison was born in the East End of London. By 1886 he was working as a clerk at the People's Palace, in Mile End.

In 1890 he joined the Evening Globe newspaper and following year published a story which was subsequently published in book form to critical success. Around this time Morrison was also producing detective short stories which emulated those of Conan Doyle about Sherlock Holmes. Three volumes of Hewitt stories were published before the publication of the novel for which Morrison is most famous: A Child of the Jago (1896). The novel described in graphic detail living conditions in East End including the permeation of violence into everyday life. Other less well-received novels and stories followed, until Morrison effectively retired from writing fiction around 1913.