In 1936 Denton Welch, who was then an art student at Goldsmiths College and had no thoughts of becoming a writer, suffered an appalling accident. He was bicycling from Greenwich down the main Brighton road, on a Whitsun holiday, when a car ran into him, fracturing his spine and leaving him a permanent invalid, till his death in 1948 at the age of 32.

It is of course a tragic tale, but also an inspiring and encouraging one. You might say that the hero of the story is writing. That puts the point clumsily, but if you are to write a biography of Welch, it is what it will have be about.

LRB 17 October 2002 | PDF Download