Prelude to a Certain Midnight

Literature & Fiction

Kersh, Gerald

Contemporary

Dover Pubns

'[Gerald Kersh] is a story-teller of an almost vanished kind - though the proper description is perhaps a teller of 'rattling good yarns'... He is fascinated by the grotesque and the bizarre, by the misfits of life, the angry, the down-and-outs and the damned. A girl of eight commits a murder. Some circus freaks are shipwrecked on an island. A chess champion walks in his sleep and destroys the games he has so carefully planned...' TLS  'Beneath his talented lightness and fantasy, Gerald Kersh is a serious man... [He] has the ability... to create a world which is not realistic and which is yet entirely credible and convincing on its own fantastic terms.' New York Times 'Mr Kersh tells a story; as such, rather better than anybody else.' Pamela Hansford Johnson, Telegraph

The Best of Gerald Kersh

Short Stories & Anthologies

Faber&Faber

'It is a quality of flamboyant vigour in Mr Kersh that wins attention first of all for his fiction, and more especially, perhaps, for his occasional short story. When his flamboyant energy of sentiment and language comes off he achieves an effect of genuine distinction; at his surest, that is, he is a short story writer of a strongly individual and rewarding kind... the best and cleverest [of the 23 stories in this volume] tells with excellent economy of a ventriloquist's dummy which was inhabited, or so it seemed, by the spirit of the ventriloquist's murdered father... 'The Drunk And The Blind', the sketch of an old, battered and mentally ruined boxer, is done with a telling and slightly brutal power. 'The Devil That Troubled The Chess-Board'... is another sound thing in a vein of the slightly macabre.' Times Literary Supplement (1944)

The Horrible Dummy and Other Stories

Harry Fabian has a dream to become the top wrestling promoter in London, but he has a problem: he needs money. Not too much -- only one hundred quid -- but it might as well be a million because he needs the money by the end of the week. What's more, it is the height of the 1930s Depression, he lives in London's Soho, he makes money from selling his girlfriend to men, and the police are arresting pimps like him to clean up the streets for the imminent Coronation of George The Sixth. Hunting for victims to blackmail and con out of money, Fabian moves through the clip joints, jazz clubs, wrestling gyms, bottle bars, and all-night cafés of 1930s London, spiraling further and further into the depths of immorality and depravity. And by the time his quest is over, Harry Fabian will have entered the tenth circle of the Inferno, dragging everybody he knows down with him...

Night and the City

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

UNKNO

Harry Fabian is a cockney wide boy trying to make it big in the Soho underworld of the 1930s. He is a Flash Harry in an expensive suit, a chancer operating in a cosmopolitan corner of the city where villains, spivs, prostitutes and strong-arm men thrive. But his ambition and reckless nature are pushing him towards more and more extreme acts - and a day of reckoning. Night And The City is a classic work of social-realist fiction that captures the vibrant yet seedy underbelly of London between the world wars. Its author Gerald Kersh was high-profile, prolific and hugely popular at his peak, but would later drift into hardship and obscurity. His writing is now being rediscovered. A maverick character in his own right, Kersh's life was as colourful as those of his most flamboyant creations. As well as a highly respected novel, Night And The City was twice filmed - in 1950 and 1992 - and it is the first of these adaptations that is today regarded as one of the best of the British film-noir genre. Directed by Jules Dassin and starring Richard Widmark and Googie Withers, it was shot in a post-war landscape heavy with menace and charm - just like the book on which it was based.

Night And The City

London Books

Men Without Bones and Other Haunting Inhabitants

Genre Fiction

Black Curtain Press

The World The Flesh The Devil

Ashtree Press

In London under the fog of war, a 10-year-old Jewish girl is murdered. The police have no clues and little interest, so crusader Asta Thundesley takes up the challenge, sifting through clues and gathering up suspects for a dinner party where... nothing is learned. Detective Turpin goes by the book, and finds himself with a stunning set... of dead ends. Fascinating example of life's perils by author Kersh (Night and the City), who reminds for every winner, there can be a ton of losers. First published 1947.

Disruptive Pub

Learn, too the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile, or what really happened to Ambrose Bierce. And ponder, if you can, the case of Simple Simon, who lost the only important thing he had-and never even missed it. Lean back, relax, take a long look at the world of Kersh. You may never recover.

THIEF EXTRAORDINAIRE ? 
Gerald Kersh (1912–1957) wrote amazing novels and hundreds of short stories about the weird and wonderful people he met during his lifetime. The most intriguing was Karmesin, a master thief and self–confessed genius. His robberies, cons and double–crosses involve split–second timing, almost supernatural foresight, and spine-tingling nerve. But is he telling Kersh the truth? For the first time all 17 short stories are collected in a single volume so that you can decide for yourself. This collection is edited and introduced by Paul Duncan, who has been researching Gerald Kersh for over 10 years in preparation for a biography. The cover painting is by Carol Heyer, and the design by Deborah Miller.

Karmesin: The World's Greatest Criminal--Or Most Outrageous Liar

Duncan, Paul

United States

Crippen & Landru, Publishers

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

Books by Kersh, Gerald

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

Prelude to a Certain Midnight

The Best of Gerald Kersh

The Horrible Dummy and Other Stories

Night and the City

Night And The City

Men Without Bones and Other Haunting Inhabitants

The World The Flesh The Devil

Prelude to a Certain Midnight

Men Without Bones and Other Haunting Inhabitants

Karmesin: The World's Greatest Criminal--Or Most Outrageous Liar