Arthur Morrison was a prolific journalist and author best known for his detective fiction that featured the lawyer-detective Martin Hewitt, who was the most successful rival to Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes. His realistic novels and stories are sober in tone, but the characters are portrayed with a Dickensian colorfulness.
His attitude toward the people he described was paternalist, rather than radical, and he opposed socialism and the trades-union movement. This was one of a series of humorous articles about the different types of animals at London Zoo, such as a bear, lion, camel, simian, and fish, with the overall title Zig-Zags at the Zoo; all were profusely illustrated with cartoons.
