[Given 'a handsome and well-illustrated volume called the Prize Bible' by his grandmother] '...the surprise they got when I actually read the thing, right through, cover to cover, as if it was "Chips" or "Herewald the Wake"... Here on a wet Sunday morning was this handsome volume, leather-bound, of clear bold type and frequent illustrations -I'd look at the pictures. They were gawdy and full of action, quite a lot of them. Look at the priests of Dagon with their blood-splashed knives; Jael creeping into the tent of Sisera; Egyptian chariots overwhelmed by the Red Sea; Judas gloating over his pieces of silver like a carroty-headed Quilp...You simply had to read of these matters; and if the narrative didn't always come up to the quality of the illustrations, when it did you had a story which stayed in your imangination and gave it something to glow with. I read on, session after session, past all the boring bits and finished it at last.'