East End anti-hero King Dido celebrated in Bethnal Green
A LOST East End novel has been relaunched in Bethnal Green - an athletic stone s throw from its setting. Alexander Baron s 1969 novel King Dido about the conflict between East End gangsters in 1911 was set in and around Bethnal Green. Mr Baron s mothe
A 'LOST' East End novel has been relaunched in Bethnal Green - an athletic stone's throw from its setting.
Alexander Baron's 1969 novel King Dido about the conflict between East End gangsters in 1911 was set in and around Bethnal Green.
Mr Baron's mother grew up in Hare Marsh, off Cheshire Street, and his anti-hero Dido Peach lives in a fictionalised version of the area dubbed Rabbit Marsh.
The book has been re-issued by Five Leaves Publications in its New London Editions.
It has a new introduction by Ken Worpole who knew Mr Baron, who also had a successful career as a film and television script-writer.
Mr Worpole was joined by the author's son university history lecturer Dr Nick Baron to discuss gritty East End fiction at the book's re-launch at Bethnal Green Library in Cambridge Heath Road.
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Hackney-born Alexander Baron was considered a major writer of the mid-twentieth century and his wartime novel From the City, From the Plough sold more than a million copies.
