Who is Denton Welch?
Denton
Welch (b 1915; d 1948) is the least known English literary genius of
the 20th century. This Web site is an attempt to show why such a
strong claim can be made for his literary output, which was small. He
deserves more readers.
What makes the existence of a writer of Welch's genius so remarkable is that the events of his life might so easily have squashed his literary talent. Denton Welch was born in Shanghai into a family whose lifestyle was typical of the English ruling class in the late Edwardian period. His upbringing - privileged in terms of its safety and wealth, deprived in terms of its absence of love freely given and its social isolation - was formative of the concerns he brought to his writing. Like the other great miniaturist in English literature, Jane Austen, Denton Welch wrote on an intimate scale of a cloistered world. His short stories and novels are crowded with eccentric dowager aunts, and over-furnished with horsehair sofas and exquisitely constructed doll's houses.
His bohemian interests in art, writing and antiques grew from the
barren ground of his mother's death when he was aged 11 and a
rigorous, punitive education at the exclusive 'public' school of
Repton in England. It is indicative of Welch's wiry courage, his
contrary independence of mind, that he ran away from Repton at age
16, despite his living in an era when young people of
his 
social
class endured long training (under threat of beatings and ostracism)
in obedience and conformity. Though he was dragged back to the
boarding school whose very uniform contained 'a horror ... as there
is horror in a black comb which conceals grease from some tainted
scalp', he eventually escaped to an art school to study painting and
drawing.
The other major disaster of Denton Welch's short life was the traffic accident which almost killed him in June 1935, when he was barely old enough to have tasted the freedom he had craved as an adolescent. A car ran him down on a suburban road as he rode his bicycle. The accident destroyed his health and he died from successive illnesses related to his injuries at the age of 33.
The legacy of this traumatic, brief life was a singular voice in British fiction.