Burke (1886-1945) was a British author who achieved success with Limehouse Nights (1916), a collection of stories centred on life in the poverty-stricken Limehouse district of London. In this book offering an insight into London during World War I, published in 1919, Burke revisits Limehouse to find the scenes described in his earlier book have disappeared, noting that "the glamorous shame of Chinatown has departed."