the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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William Le Queux : [unknown]

'It is equally possible for the same reader to adopt different frames for the same story, relishing it on one level while seeing through the claptrap on another. In his youth Aneurin Bevan enjoyed the Magnet and Gem surreptitiously (his father forbade them) and devoured H. Rider Haggard at the Tredegar Workmen's Institute Library. But during the 'Phoney War' he lambasted the government's stupidly optimistic predictions in precisely the same terms: "Immediately on the outbreak of war, England was given over to the mental level of the Boys' Own Paper and the Magnet..." In 1944 Bevan freely admitted that "William le Queux, John Buchan and Phillips Oppenheim have always been favourites of ours in our off-moments. Part of their charm lies in their juvenile attitude".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Aneurin Bevan      Print: Book

William Tufnell Le Queux : [unknown]

'Most army hospitals acquired a varied collection of books and this ward was no exception. With plenty of time to pass in bed I naturally spent a lot of it reading, and browsed on a literary diet ranging from Le Queux and Edgar Wallace, to Emily Brontë and Turgenev.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Geoffrey Ratcliff Husbands      Print: Book

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