Maiden Voyage

By Denton Wlech

Maiden Voyage is Denton Welch’s debut novel, a frankly autobiographical account of a short period in his life when - at the age of 16 - he ran away from his English boarding school, before being sent back to Shanghai to live with his businessman father. “Trembling with sex”, is how Alan Bennett wonderfully describes Maiden Voyage; and as well as portraying so acutely the passions and nameless longings of a teenage boy, and the strange quirks and brutalities of public school life, it is also a novel that deals with the agony of childhood bereavement - the suffering of a boy who has only recently lost his mother. When Maiden Voyage was first published in 1943 it was an overnight sensation, and so graphic in its depiction of adolescence and the schooling system that Welch’s publisher - Herbert Read - was forced to seek legal advice. Seventy years on, there is little to shock the modern reader - but more than enough to earn a new generation of fans and admirers. William Burroughs said, “If ever there was a writer who was neglected, it was Denton. He makes you aware of the magic that is right beneath your eyes.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Galley Beggar Press
• Release date: Sep 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781910296318

Reviews for Maiden Voyage

[piemouth · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's hard to say why I liked this so much. It has almost no plot, events simply unfold. But his descriptions of people and places and his joy in beautiful things and new things are so charming and endearing.

[cliffburns · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Denton Welch's first book, an account of his flight from his horrid English school and trip abroad to visit his father in Shanghai. As with everything Welch wrote, the detail is exquisite, beautifully remembered and rendered. The man's eye and aesthetic sensibilities appear to have been faultless. After you read this one, make sure to seek out his JOURNALS, which are just as perfectly made, the artist ever evident.

[presto_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Denton Welch, artist and author, writes in part memoir, part novel, of the year at the age of fifteen he ran away from school, and subsequently left for China to join his father. He begins as he is due to set off for his return to Repton, his Derbyshire public school where his brothers also attend or attended. But instead of catching the train going north from London he buys a ticket for Salisbury. As his money runs out he is forced to make arrangements to return, with the outcome that he can eventually join his father in China.Welch describes his escape, his brief return to Repton, and then his time in China. The account is filled with little adventures and encounters in which Welch reveals as much about himself as the people he meets and the places he visits. He writes with an artist's eye, his powers of observation creating strong images and bringing to life both people and places. Welch is an unusual youth, sensitive, something of a loner, with a great interest in the antique and especially small objects, and a sense of adventure. The honesty of his writing cannot but endear one to this young man who is clearly set apart from most, and who occasionally and subtly reveals through his writings his gay tendencies.

[dramman_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A memoir of the author's first visit to China in the 1930s, while still a teenager (a troubled one as he had just run away from his boarding school, Repton). Written in a simple, unaffected style, it is a beguiling read.