<p>In 1951 Turnstile Press published Common's best-known book, the autobiographical Kiddar's Luck, in which he vividly describes his childhood on the streets of Edwardian Tyneside, as seen through the lens of his adult socialism. There are four chapters on his life before five years old - a feat of detailed memory - while his mother's alcoholism and the overbearing father whom Jack at length dramatically defies, form the dark background to the vigorous, at times bravura, narrative. The book found praise as a slice of Geordie naturalism, a convincing depiction of 'the other England' which so beguiled the imagination of contemporary intellectuals. On the other hand, its irony and subtly bitter universality went largely unrecognised.In The Ampersand (1954) Common took the story further, but his publishers went into liquidation two years later. Neither book had been a commercial success and Common had not completed the trilogy with his long-promised Riches and Rare, a novel set in Newcastle at the time of the General Strike. Interestingly, Lawrence Bradshaw had used Common's brow as a model for his bust of Karl Marx in Highgate Cemetery, saying that he found there a similar patience and understanding.-</p>

Kiddar's luck and The ampersand

Common, Jack

Frank Graham

<p>He was indeed the nearest anybody ever got to Charlie Chaplin in print...the sentences skid and dance and hop on one leg or take a custard pie right on the chin or duck and weave and leave you gasping behind. But he is more for the wry smile than the belly laugh."" This was how Sid Chaplin described Jack Common, author of one of the finest working-class novels written this century. Common was born in 1903 in Newcastle, England, and grew up in the terraced streets backing onto the railway yards where his father worked.</p>

Kiddar's Luck

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Bloodaxe Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Common, Jack. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Common, Jack

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Common, Jack. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Kiddar's luck and The ampersand

Kiddar's Luck