I started my Denton discovery with Maiden Voyage. In terms of publication order, this was correct. Had I wanted to read his books in chronological order it would have been:

  • In Youth is Pleasure – a summer holiday spent with his father and brothers in 1930
  • Maiden Voyage – the following year, Denton ran away rather than return to boarding school, resulting in a year spent in China with his father
  • I Left My Grandfather’s House – a novella recounting Denton’s experiences during a walking tour during the summer of 1933
  • A Voice Through A Cloud –  considered to be his masterpiece, this is Denton’s account of his recovery in hospital and nursing homes, having been seriously injured when he was knocked off his bicycle by a careless driver in 1935.

They’re all self-contained books, so it doesn’t really matter in which order they’re read, but in retrospect, I wish I’d read them chronologically. They chart the progression in a few short years of an independent (but emotionally fragile) teenager to a young man who is physically dependent on others – and still emotionally fragile. 

His teenage books recount adventures that would be unthinkable to many teenagers today, but didn’t seem anything unusual to Denton or his family in the 1930’s: nights spent wandering an unfamiliar city alone, chatting to strangers; entire days of absence from his family whilst on holiday without explanation, uncontactable and alone, breaking into deserted cottages and chatting to (or spying on) strangers; checking into hotels and guest houses without anyone seeming to think it odd that such a young person was travelling alone and stealthily calling in Social Services. 

When he returned to the bosom of his family, Denton was generally greeted with a vague “oh, there you are”, or mild irritation that he was late for dinner. Most modern teenagers would have quite a different greeting: “where have you been?!” “we’ve been so worried!” “why didn’t you tell us where you were going?!”. Of course, most modern teenagers would have a mobile phone welded to their hand, and therefore no excuse for going AWOL, but I still marvel at a world when parents didn’t need to worry about their children in the way they do now.

For this reason, I don’t agree with Richard Hell’s comment that “nothing much happens in his books” – perhaps this is true of A Voice Through A Cloud, but plenty happens in the others. Not in an action-packed, Dan Brown two-pages-until-the-next-cliffhanger way, but in recounting solo adventures that even the Famous Five might feel a little doubtful about getting into. Of course, we don’t know how many of his adventures are fiction and which really happened. I’m looking forward to reading his journals and comparing accounts.