Maurice Denton Welch (1915Ð1948) was an English writer and painter, admired for his vivid prose and precise descriptions. Fictional content aside, the point of origin of virtually all of his stories is biographical: they are often set in places he knew or had visited, and feature thinly-disguised, often deeply unflattering, depictions of friends, family and acquaintances (to the extent that over thirty years after Welch’s death, his art school friend, the artist Gerald Leet, refused to contribute to Michael De-la-Noy’s biography, where he is identified only as ‘Gerald’ in the index.). Welch chose to depict himself a few times in fictionalised form, most notably as “Orvil Pym” in In Youth is Pleasure, and as “Mary” in “The Fire in the Wood”. “Robert” was also one of his favourite personas. The philosopher Maurice Cranston, who had known him since his teens (and who featured in at least one story) observed that Welch was as unforgiving in depictions of himself as he was of others.