Denton Welch was born in 1915 in Shanghai, the youngest of three brothers. After attending boarding school in England, he enrolled at Goldsmiths' School of Art in April 1933 to study painting. In June 1935, while still a student, he was involved in a cycling accident that left him bedridden for the rest of his life, and he turned to writing instead of painting. He died in December 1948, at the age of 33.
Maybe there is no better novel in the world than Denton Welch's In Youth Is Pleasure. Just holding it in my hands, so precious, so beyond gay, so deliciously subversive, is enough to make illiteracy a worse social crime than hunger -- John Waters Unlike any other person I had come across, Welch seemed to be speaking particularly to me -- Alan Bennett A heightened, sensual journey ... it is Orvil's vibrant energy that allows this book to bubble ... beautifully odd ... spectacular -- The Independent The writer who most directly influenced my work ... he makes the reader aware of the magic that is right under his eyes -- William Burroughs