SOURCE: "Places to Go," in When Winter Comes to Main Street, George H. Doran Company, 1922, pp. 187-95.

In the following excerpt, Overton discusses Whispering Windows and The London Spy.

The book by Thomas Burke called More Limehouse Nights was published in England under the title of Whispering Windows. At the time of its publication, Mr. Burke wrote the following:

The most disconcerting question that an author can be asked, and often is asked, is: "Why did you write that book?" The questioners do not want an answer to that immediate question; but to the implied question: "Why don't you write some other kind of book?" To either question there is but one answer: BECAUSE.

Every writer is thus challenged. The writer of comic stories is asked why he doesn't write something really serious. The novelist is asked why he doesn't write short stories, and the short-story writer is...