(Maurice) Denton Welch (1915-1948) was an English writer and painter, admired for his vivid prose and precise descriptions.

Welch was born in Shanghai and spent his childhood in China — he recorded this in the autobiography of his early years, Maiden Voyage (1935). With the help and patronage of Edith Sitwell and John Lehmann this became a small but lasting success and made for him a distinct and individual reputation. It was followed by the novel In Youth is Pleasure (1943), a study of adolescence, and by Brave and Cruel (1949). An unfinished autobiographical novel A Voice through a Cloud was published posthumously in 1950.

Welsh did not set out to be a writer. He originally studied art in London with the intention of becoming a painter. At the age of 20, he was hit by a car while cycling and suffered a fractured spine. Although he was not paralyzed, he suffered severe pain and complications, including spinal tuberculosis that ultimately lead to his early death.

His literary work, intense and introverted, includes insighted portraits of his friends, and minutely observed landscapes of the English countryside during World War II. Shorter works include the essay on the painter Walter Sickert which, published originally in The London Magazine brought him to the notice of Sitwell. He continued occasionally to paint; there is a fine self-portrait (in the National Portrait Gallery, and some line illustrations in the first editions of his books.

It may be that his most lasting work will be his Journals, the complete edition of which was published in 1952, edited by his biographer Michael De-la-Noy

Works

• In Youth is Pleasure (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1985), ISBN 0525481613.
• A Voice Through a Cloud (London: J. Lehmann, 1950).
• The Denton Welch Journals (London: Hamilton, 1973).
• Maiden Voyage (London: Hamilton, 1973), ISBN: 0241023769.

Reference

• De-la-Noy, Michael (1984) The Making of a Writer

External links

• The Denton Welch Admiration Site
• Article from University of London South Bank Knitting Circle
• A Short Guide to Denton Welch
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