pulps
In the Shadow of Lantern Street
In the Shadow of Lantern Street Herbert G. Woodworth's novel follows a ten-year-old boy named Hsiao living in Peking in the early twentieth century. The narrative opens at the Cheng-Yang-Men gate where Hsiao serves an elderly Chinese master, though locals remark the boy appears racially white. After work, Hsiao returns to a mud hut where Ya-tzu, a woman with bound feet, provides him maternal care despite their lack of blood relation. Hsiao also tends to a sickly donkey he calls "Brother" and performs manual labor including sewage work in the Rat's (his master's) garden patch outside the south gate. At the garden pool, Hsiao encounters Li, an older boy from a wealthy family, who fights him over an egg. The narrative depicts the harsh conditions of colonial Peking's laboring poor, Hsiao's mysterious origins, and his relationships with Ya-tzu and animal companionship.