'The Jago had got him, and it held him fast.' In the
worst of London's East End slums, in an area called the
Jago, young Dicky Perrott is used to a life of poverty,
crime, and violence. Gang warfare is the order of the
day, deaths are commonplace, and thieving the only way
to survive. At first Dicky dreams of becoming a High
Mobsman - one of the aristocrats of Jago crime - but the
efforts of Father Sturt to improve conditions offer him
a different path. Dicky's journey takes him through a
savage but colourful community of pickpockets and
cosh-carriers, where the police only enter in threes,
and where murder erupts with an unusual horror and
intimacy. Morrison's portrayal of the Victorian
underclass and its underworld drew attention to the
bleak prospects for children living in such
surroundings, and it is a classic of slum-fiction. In
this edition Peter Miles provides a rich contextual
background to the creation of the novel, and the social
debates to which it contributed. ABOUT THE SERIES: For
over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made
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