White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings

Publisher Marketing: 'In this extraordinary work Sinclair combines a sort of spiritual inquest or seance into the Whitechapel Ripper murders and the dark side of the late Victorian imagination with another plot-thread, done in hectic picaresque, of a posse of seedy book dealers hot on the trail of obscure rarities of that period. These ruined and ruthless dandies appear and disappear through a phantasmagoria - Dickensian London gripped by cholera, the shambles of a Victorian surgeon's operating theatre, vultures flapping around the Farringdon Road bookstalls as the ropes come off - interspersed with occult conjurings and reflections on the nature of fiction and history.' So wrote a critic for London's "Guardian" newspaper, which chose Iain Sinclair's brilliantly original debut novel, "White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings" (1987), as runner-up for the prestigious Guardian Fiction Prize. This first-ever American edition features a new introduction by Alan Moore, whose graphic novel "From Hell" was partly inspired by Sinclair's novel. 'Iain Sinclair, in "White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings," has provided much more than a brilliant debut ... a manifesto for a future literature that has more blood, more brains, and more mysterious beauty ... Those who aspire to understand what's happening in modern writing should start here.' - Alan Moore, from the Introduction 'A work of integrity because it constantly takes serious risks ... I only wish there was more writing like this.' - Kathy Acker 'A stimulating and idiosyncratic visionary novel, full of lively characters and bizarre humour.' - Michael Moorcock 'Sentence for sentence, there is no more interesting writer at work in English.' - John Lanchester, "Daily Telegraph" Contributor Bio:  Sinclair, Iain Iain Sinclair is the author of many books, including "Downriver", "Lights Out for the Territory", "London Orbital", and "Hackney, That Rose- Red Empire". He lives in Hackney, East London. Contributor Bio:  Moore, Alan H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) is regarded as the leading twentieth-century American author of supernatural fiction.