Cork Street, Next To The Hatter’s is part of Pamela Hansford Johnson’s ‘Dorothy Merlin Trilogy’, along with The Unspeakable Skipton and Night and Silence, Who Is Here? Described as ‘A novel in bad taste’, the story follows a reluctant don, Tom Hariot, taken to the theatre by Cosmo Hines, husband to the once-notorious Dorothy, to see the latest and least lovely in the current wave of plays.

Appalled, Tom’s surprising reaction is to devote himself to the academic exercise of writing a play of such unparalleled obscenity and sadism that no manager or theatre would dare or wish to present. Innocent that he is, he thinks there can be a limit and strives to be the one that defines it.