Gerald Kersh  

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Gerald Kersh (1911-1968) was a British writer. Born in 1911, he began to write at the age of 8. After leaving school he worked as, amongst other things, a cinema manager, bodyguard, debt collector, fish & chip cook, travelling salesman, French teacher and all-in-wrestler whilst attempting to 'make it' as a writer.

He finally managed to get his first novel Jews Without Jehovah published in 1934 but in this autobiographical tale of growing up poor and Jewish he had not sufficiently concealed the identities of some of the characters and a member of his family sued for libel: as a result the book was quickly withdrawn. He had more luck with Night and the City which was published in 1938 and has been filmed twice, most notably with Richard Widmark in 1950 and then in 1992 with Robert De Niro in the lead role (this version transposed the setting from London to New York). This story of Harry Fabian, a petty gangster and pimp on the make, displays Kersh's extensive knowledge of the London underworld.

It has been claimed that the 'ventriloquist's dummy' section of the famous British horror movie Dead of Night was based on Kersh's story "The Extraordinarily Horrible Dummy", and documentation apparently exists to back this up (although Kersh did not receive screen credit). (1)

Kersh was drafted into the army during the Second World War, and ended up writing for the Army Film Unit. Despite apparently 'deserting' Kersh ended up in France during the liberation where he discovered that many of his French relatives had ended up in Hitler's extermination camps. After the war, Kersh continued to enjoy commercial success, mainly because of his short stories, which range over, and sometimes combine, genres such as horror, science fiction, fantasy and the detective story. From about the mid 1950s onwards he started to suffer from poor health, and he also ran into money troubles (specifically relating to his failure to pay income tax). However, Kersh continued to publish novels and stories, some of which were commercially and critically successful. In 1958, his short story "The Secret of the Bottle", originally published in The Saturday Evening Post, received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America.

After his death in 1968 Kersh became deeply unfashionable and his work was almost completely forgotten. However in recent years there have been signs of a revival: in many ways he pioneered the British gangster story, which has become fashionable again with such films as Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Harlan Ellison has stated that Kersh is his favourite author.

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Works

  • Jews without Jehovah (1934)
  • Men Are So Ardent (1935)
  • Night And The City (1938) (ISBN 0-7434-1304-0)
  • I Got References (1939) stories
  • The Nine Lives of Bill Nelson (1942)
  • They Die with their Boots Clean (1942)
  • Brain and Ten Fingers (1943)
  • Selected Stories (1943)
  • The Dead Look On (1943)
  • Faces in a Dusty Picture (1944)
  • The Horrible Dummy and Other Stories (1944)
  • The Weak and the Strong (1945)
  • An Ape, A Dog And A Serpent (1945)
  • Sergeant Nelson of the Guards (1945)
  • Clean, Bright and Slightly Oiled (1946) stories
  • Neither Man nor Dog: short stories (1946)
  • Sad Road to the Sea (1947) stories
  • The Song of the Flea (1948)
  • Clock without Hands (1949) stories
  • The Thousand Deaths of Mr. Small (1951)
  • The Brazen Bull (1952) stories
  • Prelude to a Certain Midnight (1953) (ISBN 0-486-24536-5)
  • The Great Wash (1953) The Secret Masters in USA
  • The Brighton Monster and Other Stories (1953)
  • Guttersnipe (1954) stories
  • Men Without Bones (1955) stories
  • Fowlers End (1958)
  • On an Odd Note (1958) stories
  • Men Without Bones (US) (1960) stories
  • The Ugly Face of Love and Other Stories (1960)
  • The Best of Gerald Kersh (1960) edited by Simon Raven
  • The Implacable Hunter (1961)
  • More Than Once Upon A Time (1964) stories
  • The Hospitality of Miss Tolliver (1965) stories
  • A long cool day in hell (1966)
  • The Angel and the Cuckoo (1966)
  • Nightshade and Damnations (1968) stories
  • Brock (1969)
  • The Terrible Wild Flowers: Nine Stories (1980)
  • Karmesin. The World's Greatest Criminal - or Most Outrageous Liar (2003) stories (ISBN 1-932009-03-5)



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