'James Hanley's workmates laughed when he taught himself French by reading the Mercure de France...Working the night shift at a railway station, Hanley withdrew into the work of Moliere, Hauptmann, Calderon, Sudermann, Ibsen, Lie and Strindberg until he grew quite cozy in his literary shell. His parents were appalled that he had no friends. But I've hundreds of friends he protested. "Bazarov and Rudin and Liza and Sancho Panza and Eugenie Grandet". His father countered with Squeers, Nickleby, Snodgrass and Little Nell: "And they're a healthy lot I might say, whereas all your friends have either got consumption, or are always in the dumps".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hanley Print: Book
'I have read The Inferno. It is wonderful, the most awful study of on-coming madness one could think of, and the strange thing is, it is entirely a writer's madness. I mean no one but a writer or artist of some sort would find significance in such small things.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith Sitwell
'Once, in the midst of trying to read a Strindberg play, I felt ghostly fingers gently stirring my hair, and twice mysterious footsteps walked slowly up the ward, stopped opposite my table and never returned.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Unknown