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Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (Vintage Classics)
 
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Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (Vintage Classics) (Paperback)

by Patrick Hamilton (Author), Michael Holroyd (Introduction)
4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 528 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New Ed edition (6 May 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099479168
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099479161
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 3.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 87,205 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #5 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > H > Hamilton, Patrick

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
Patrick Hamilton was just twenty-four years old when The Midnight Bell was first published in 1929, but his writing told a different story. The narrative he told was, give or take, his own and was of a young man (Euston Road barman Bob) impossibly in love with one of London's "lovely ladies" (Jenny), an infatuation which tore him apart emotionally, and led him steadily from pub to pub to dosshouse. While Hamilton the man managed to extricate himself from his affair and get married, over the next few years Hamilton the writer returned compulsively to the same materials, manipulating unresolved subplots and highlighting minor characters to produce The Siege of Pleasure in 1932 and The Plains of Cement in 1934. Together the three novels form a many-layered and remarkable trilogy, now happily available again in paperback. They conjure brilliantly twenties Britain, emotionally paralysed by class fears and genteel snobbery, but by now completely unable to regain the social certainties of the past. Hamilton captured the psychological complexity of his career losers with a theatricality which would later find full expression in his stage plays (later filmed), Rope and Gaslight. Many writers since have probed into the capital's lowlife, but probably nobody will ever capture so well the twilight tyranny of the London pub, and its denizens' unspeakable desperation. --Alan Stewart --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
The Midnight Bell, a pub on the Euston Road, is the pulse of this brilliant and compassionate trilogy. It is here where the barman, Bob, falls in love with Jenny, a West End prostitute who comes in off the streets for a gin and pep. Around his obsessions, and Ella the barmaid's secret love for him, swirls the sleazy life of London in the 1930s. This is a world where people emerge from cheap lodgings in Pimlico to pour out their passions, hopes and despair in pubs and bars - a world of twenty thousand streets full of cruelty and kindness, comedy and pathos, wasted dreams and lost desires.

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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews
5 star:
 (9)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Loneliness captured, 26 Jun 2005
By moley75 (London) - See all my reviews
These three novels are deeply moving. Most reviewers focus on The Midnight Bell which is the story of Bob and his involvement with a prostitute. It is convincingly written (apparently Hamilton wrote it while he was infatuated with a prostitute) and richly evocative. However, it is the The Plains of Cement that had me in tears at the end. Ella is twenty eight, in love with the oblivious Bob, and has a comfortably off middle aged admirer. Her struggles with her loneliness, her unsatisfying job, and the routine of her life, are so well written by Hamilton that my heart just aches for her.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars superb - an unjustly forgotten masterpiece, 30 Jun 2000
By A Customer
These stories are every bit as good as Hangover Square and Slaves of Solitude; Hamilton's regrettable overuse of capital letters for comic effect (she asked if he would Like to Go Outside etc)is their only fault. Hamilton' skill in putting his finger on the most complex feelings and emotions can be compared to Proust. Buy this book today, believe me you won't be disappointed!Thanks to Mr Holroyd for introducing Hamilton to a new generation of readers.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A gem!, 8 Feb 2006
By Jason M. Webber "Jason" (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I was expecting a dour difficult to get through depiction of life in the 20's and 30's but have been delighted by this excellent fast paced book. Whilst the lives of the participants are often grim hamilton gives them such life and their actions all ring true.

Highly reccomended!

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars VERY MUCH A PRODUCT OF ITS TIME
Yes, three well-told tales with three well-drawn characters. Yes, you really get a feeling of time and place, and, for both these reasons, it is a good read and worth your time... Read more
Published 23 days ago by Easily Me

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, heart-breaking stuff
This novel is billed as a lost classic, and it is certainly that. Knowing nothing about either the book or Hamilton, I embarked on this 500+ page tome with some trepidation. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Miss Marple

4.0 out of 5 stars A Brillaint Portrayal of Longing
This modern classic tells the story of three characters, the waiter, the prostitute and the barmaid and is centred on a pub in the Euston Road, 'The Midnight Bell', in London in... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Dr. R. Brandon

5.0 out of 5 stars The Siege of Pleasure
I agree with all the thoughts here and wanted to put in a special word for the shortest section - The Siege of Pleasure - which decribes Jenny's fall from "treasure" to whore... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Donald Lush

5.0 out of 5 stars Set In The 1930s, But A Timeless Classic
Attempting to convince someone of the attraction of this book by simply recounting the bare basics of the storyline would require Noel Coward's mastery of the English language... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Balraj Gill

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and accessible
Really enjoyed this book, having just picked it up at random, the back cover synopsis appealing to me. It tells the 3 stories of the 3 protagonists so well. Read more
Published on 5 Mar 2007 by Lucy Feather

5.0 out of 5 stars A lesson in empathy and inter-relating lives
I'd never heard of Patrick Hamilton before I added this book to my wish list on a whim, only for it to be bought for me a few months later and I read it almost all the way through... Read more
Published on 23 Jan 2007 by J. D. King

5.0 out of 5 stars Hamilton's eyes for Londoners
Patrick Hamilton can do without apparent effort what the gifts and virtuosity and sophistication of almost our contemporary luminaries cannot even approach. Read more
Published on 26 Feb 2006 by A Reader

5.0 out of 5 stars a "lost London classic", by a master of black humour
A trilogy of London novels, published separately in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and put out as "Twenty Thousand Streets" in 1935. Read more
Published on 23 Jul 2004 by bthom535

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