Limehouse Nights is a 1916 short story collection by the British writer Thomas Burke. The stories are set in and around the Chinatown that was then centred on Limehouse in the East End of London. The book was a popular success and features several of Burke's best-known stories such as "The Chink and the Child" and "Beryl and the Croucher".
Film adaptations Four films have been based upon stories collected in Limehouse Nights. The story "The Chink and the Child" was turned into the 1919 film Broken Blossoms directed by D.W. GriffithProgressive Silent Film List: Broken Blossoms at silentera.com and its 1936 remake.BFI Film & Television Database entry for Broken Blossoms (1936) The story "Twelve Golden Curls" became the film Curlytop in 1924.Progressive Silent Film List: Curlytop at silentera.com "Beryl and the Croucher" was filmed in 1949 as No Way BackBFI Film & Television Database entry for No Way Back (1949) and set in the contemporary East End as part of the Spiv cycle of films made in the years following the Second World War.
George Gershwin Limehouse Nights was the inspiration for an eponymous piano piece by the renowned American composer George Gershwin.
Bibliography Limehouse Nights London: Grant Richards, 1916, 1923 Limehouse Nights New York: Robert M. McBride, 1917 Limehouse Nights London: Daily Express Fiction Library, undated [1936-1940] Limehouse Nights New York: Horizon Press, 1973
References
Further reading Newland, Paul. The Cultural Construction of London's East End: Urban Iconography, Modernity and the Spatialisation of Englishness. 2008. Witchard, Anne Veronica. Thomas Burke's Dark Chinoiserie. Ashgate, 2009.
External links Limehouse Nights at London Fictions