A voice from the past - Dennis Hamley
I sometimes think there are far more books on my shelves than are good for me. There are some I've forgotten I had, some I'm aware I have but either can't remember what they're about or know that now I'll probably never read them. Sometimes I cull the shelves by transferring hopeless cases to the Oxfam bookshop, sometimes I look on amazed as I recall the sudden enthusiasms which made me buy them. And the other day I looked at a set of books that were spotty with age and remembered a real enthusiasm which I suddenly felt I might rekindle. I read English at university and in my third year was suddenly aware of the novels of George Gissing. And there some of the twenty-three are, still on my shelves: Thyrza, Born in Exile, The Whirlpool, Demos, New Grub Street, , In the Year of Jubilee, Will Warburton, A Life's Morning, Veranilda. A travel book, By the Ionian Sea. A short story collection, The House of Cobwebs. A series of thinly ...