Where Nothing Sleeps: The Complete Short Stories and Other Related Works

Two slipcased hardbacks of 380+xvii and 390 pages. Sewn signatures, printed on 130gsm acid-free paper, and bound by Bath Press in yellow wibalin cloth stamped in copper, with silk ribbon marker and head and tailbands. 500 sets. Preface by James Methuen-Campbell. This definitive collection of seventy-six short stories and related autobiographical writings, presented in the two volumes of "Where Nothing Sleeps", is suffused with the paradoxical appeal of Denton Welch: his self-obsession and Gothic morbidity of outlook, ranged against his dogged individualism and ability to charm and fascinate the reader with the 'freshness and pinpoint detail of his perceptions'. Admired by literary luminaries as diverse as William Burroughs and Edith Sitwell, Welch, author of "Maiden Voyage", was only thirty-three at his death in 1948. An Old Boy of Repton and Goldsmiths' College, he had a memorably idiosyncratic personality and never lost his feeling of being excluded from society in general, perhaps because of his early childhood in China and, as he became aware later in life, his homosexuality. But the fact that he was able to rise above severe physical infirmities inflicted by a tragic road accident when he was twenty to create some memorable writing and artwork, demonstrates that he also possessed a remarkable strength of character.