Life
Burke was born Sydney Thomas Burke on 29 November 1886 in Clapham Junction. Burke's father died when he was barely a few months old and he was eventually sent to live with his uncle in Poplar. At the age of ten he was removed to a home for middle-class boys who were "[r]espectably descended but without adequate means to their support." When Burke turned sixteen he started working as an office boy, a job that he deeply detested. In 1901, he published his first professional written work entitled "The Bellamy Diamonds" in the magazine Spare Moments. He also edited some anthologies of children's poetry that were published in 1910–1913.
In 1915, Burke published Nights in Town: A London Autobiography, which featured his descriptions of working-class London nightlife including the essay, 'A Chinese Night, Limehouse' However, it was not until the publication of Limehouse Nights in 1916 that he obtained any substantial acclaim as an author. This collection of melodramatic short stories, set in a lower-class environment populated by Chinese immigrants, was published in three British periodicals, The English Review, Colour and The New Witness, and received marked attention from literary reviewers. Limehouse Nights helped to earn Burke a reputation as "the laureate of London's Chinatown". Burke's writing also influenced contemporary popular forms of entertainment, such as the Western film industry. Indeed, D. W. Griffith used the short story "The Chink and the Child" from Limehouse Nights as the basis for his popular silent film Broken Blossoms (1919). However, Limehouse Nights also proved controversial upon release, being "banned for immorality by the circulating libraries and Burke [being] condemned as a "blatant agitator" by the Times Literary Supplement for his evocative portrayal of a hybrid East End." The Times Literary Supplement wrote that
In place of the steady, equalised light which he should have thrown on that pestiferous spot off the West India Dock Road, he has been content... with flashes of limelight and fireworks.
Burke continued to develop his descriptions of London life throughout his later literary works. He gradually expanded his range with novels such as The Sun in Splendor, which was published in 1926. He also continued to publish essays on the London environment, including pieces such as "The Real East End" and "London in My Times". Burke died in the Homeopathic Hospital in Queens Square, Bloomsbury on 22 September 1945. His short story "The Hands of Ottermole" was later voted the best mystery of all time by critics in 1949. Having so closely tied his literature to Limehouse, illuminating an otherwise relatively unknown community, historians have noted that Burke's popularity correlated with the presence of the Chinese population in the district, leading to a significant decline in his notability in the decades following his death.
