The Lover of Things

Henry Dobbs is born into squalor in the Kensington slums in London. He is a strange boy in many ways; he cares a great deal for well-made things and the beauty that he sees in them, but people are a different matter. They seem really only there for his convenience. His one-eyed attention to lovely things is translated slowly into knowledge, which eventually earns him a job with Riley's, an up and coming firm of removalists. He comes face to face with items he has dreamed about, and which bring out in him a dangerous new sense that will change his life. Radclyffe Hall's insightful and careful delineation of a character who would now be seen as neurodiverse (on the autism spectrum) was way ahead of its time.