Night and the City [Paperback]

With a backdrop of the build-up to the Coronation celebrations of 1936, Harry Fabian swaggers around the bars, clubs and backstreets of Soho and the West End hustling for a pound note and invariably spending a fiver. He is a wide boy, a spiv and a ponce but most of all a fantasist heavily influenced by Hollywood films. Reality in the shape of exploited employees and prostitutes, family members and the forces of the law gradually impinges on the fantasy. With a colourful supporting cast of night-club owners, hostesses, wrestlers, pimps and barrow-boys Gerald Kersh has created an authentic and seductive landscape of the time and the place.

On first release Night And The City prompted much controversy being an early exposure of the seedier side of London that flourished behind the public face of the changing of the guards, the chiming of Big Ben and famous West End shows. Nevertheless, the novel endured and was filmed twice: firstly with Richard Widmark in 1950 and generally considered a film noir classic, and later starring Robert de Niro in 1992.

This edition includes a substantial introduction by contemporary author John King whose work includes The Football Factory trilogy, Human Punk, White Trash and The Prison House.

Gerald Kersh is the author of 19 novels and hundreds of short stories and articles. He died in the USA in 1968.

London Books is a new publisher formed by authors John King and Martin Knight. The company aims to bring old and new fiction together in a tradition that is original in its subject matter, style and social concerns. London Books believe that the marginalised fiction of the past can be as relevant and exciting today as when it was first published. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Before making his mark as an author, Kersh held various jobs ranging from cinema manager to cook to minder, and at times slept rough. He wasn¹t scared of a fight and carried the scars to prove it, enlisted in the Guards during the Second World War and even attended the liberation of Paris as a correspondent.

While Kersh spent his childhood in the suburbs, he had family connections in Soho, and knew the area well, later setting several novels there, Night And The City being an example. This was turned into a film in 1950 by Jules Dassin, and while Kersh didn¹t appreciate the adaptation starring Richard Widmark, it remains a classic example of British noir. It was later filmed again, this time starring Robert De Niro, this time set in New York.

Other London novels include Prelude To A Certain Midnight, Fowler's End and The Angel And The Cuckoo, but Kersh's work reaches far beyond the capital, and indeed England, as the likes of The Implacable Hunter ­ his version of the story of St Paul ­ prove.

Gerald Kersh died in the US in 1968 after some tough years, largely ignored by the critics and hard-up financially, his health poor, but reviving the sleeve notes of the first edition of The Implacable Hunter, he remains best known for his vigourous, Rabelaisian approach to life'. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.