20,000 Streets Under the Sky
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20,000 Streets Under the Sky is a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels by Patrick Hamilton.
The three books are The Midnight Bell (1929), The Siege of Pleasure (1932) and The Plains of Cement (1934). They focus on three of the people who populate The Midnight Bell pub in London; the stories interconnect. Bob is a waiter there who falls in love with a customer called Jenny who is a prostitute. The story of how Bob falls in love with Jenny is told in The Midnight Bell. The Siege of Pleasure describes how Jenny got into prostitution, and the final book, The Plains of Cement, tells the story of barmaid Ella's untold feelings for Bob, as she deals with the unwelcome advances of Ernest Eccles, an elderly customer of the pub.
The books are notable in that Patrick Hamilton himself died of liver failure caused by alcoholism, and in fact spent some time infatuated with a prostitute.
They are also notable for their portrayal of working class London in the inter-war period.
In 2005, they were dramatised and shown initially on BBC Four and later on BBC Two.
See also
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