Billy Byrne was a product of the streets and alleys of Chicago's great West Side. From Halsted to Robey, and from Grand Avenue to Lake Street there was scarce a bartender whom Billy knew not by his first name. And, in proportion to their number which was considerably less, he knew the patrolmen and plain clothes men equally as well, but not so pleasantly. His kindergarten education had commenced in an alley back of a feed-store. Here a gang of older boys and men were wont to congregate at such times as they had naught else to occupy their time, and as the bridewell was the only place in which they ever held a job for more than a day or two, they had considerable time to devote to congregating. They were pickpockets and second-story men, made and in the making, and all were muckers, ready to insult the first woman who passed, or pick a quarrel with any stranger who did not appear too burly. By night they plied their real vocations. By day they sat in the alley behind the feedstore and drank beer from a battered tin pail. The question of labor involved in transporting the pail, empty, to the saloon across the street, and returning it, full, to the alley back of the feed-store was solved by the presence of admiring and envious little boys of the neighborhood who hung, wide-eyed and thrilled, about these heroes of their childish lives. Billy Byrne, at six, was rushing the can for this noble band, and incidentally picking up his knowledge of life and the rudiments of his education. By the time he became an adult, he was another thing entirely. . . .
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
ERB does an urban version of the Tarzan story,
By Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (COMMUNITY FORUM 04) (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)
This review is from: The Mucker (Hardcover)
Okay, first, to set you mind at ease, a "mucker" is slang for "a coarse vulgar person, esp. one capable of offense against courtesy of honor." I believe it is originally British slang which made its way across the pond in the early 20th century in time for Edgar Rice Burroughs to feel comfortable using it for the title of a pair of pulp fiction yarns collected in this volume. As you would expect from the title, this is the story of a low borne brute, Billy Byrne, who wins the hand of an upper class lady, Barbara Harding . "The Mucker" ran in "All-Story Cavalier" in 1914 with "The Return of the Mucker" being published two years later in "All-Story Weekly." Now both stories are published in a single volume.Billy Byrne is basically a street thug whose notion of honor is based more on a sense of territoriality rather than anything else. Just when things are starting to become too hot in Chicago he gets shanghaied and ends up on the brigantine "Halfmoon," a 20th century pirate vessel. Surviving and rising in the ranks because of his ability to beat any other man to a bloody pulp, Billy participates in the taking of the yacht "Lotus," where one of the captives is Barbara Harding, the millionaire's daughter. Of course he insults her, as is the way of the mucker, but when she calmly calls him a coward and a beast he finds himself thinking about how he much look to others, thus beginning his quest for moral regeneration. When she gets captured by headhunters, take a wild guess as to who is going to rescue her. Of course, at the end of the first part Billy takes the high road, knowing he is not good enough for Barbara and leaving her to return to the world to which she belongs, and then we repeat all the action in the second part and change the ending. You will find a little bit from several different early works by Edgar Rice Burroughs in "The Mucker." The story starts in Chicago, a city that ERB knew well, and then turns into a sea yarn with a mutiny, which is how "Tarzan of the Apes" began, except that this time the "hero" is one of the pirates. You will also find one of ERB's lost races, which would become a staple in the last half of the Tarzan series. The second half, which takes place after the Mucker does the noble thing at the end of part one, goes off into the Mexican desert and turns into a western. So there is certainly a little bit of everything here, although the strongest comparison is to the first two Tarzan novels, not only because the romantic plot follows essentially the same pattern, but because it also provides the brute becoming civilized. In that regard it is one of ERB's more interesting pulp yarns, totally devoid of the science fiction elements found in most of his better stories, but retaining his strong sense of human nature.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Story - Rip Off Printing,
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This review is from: The Mucker (Hardcover)
This is one of Edgar Rice Burroughs' best stories. However, this is just the first half of the story! Wildside Press has gone back to the magazine version, and printed just the first half of the story of Billy Byrne. The book commonly known as THE MUCKER also contains the second half which was published in magazine form as "The Return of the Mucker". $32 for half the story? What a rip off!
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