On Re-Reading "The Cricket Term"...

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

...and the fuss about "Mask of Apollo"

In the early 1960s my school replaced "Form Libraries" (a dozen or so books kept in a cupboard) with a spanking new "Lower School Library" to complement the Upper School Library, which was only available to sixth formers; the new one had all books available to everybody, which meant from age about 12 onwards. It was there that I first read Tolkien. It was there that I noticed "I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God" but didn't first read them there because I had already done so at home.

It was there that I have now realised that I first read "The Mask of Apollo". If the publication details in my copy of "Cricket Term" are correct, this was a full decade before its first publication. I think I now understand my puzzlement over the fuss a bit better; I mean, I understand why I was puzzled. To be honest, I still am.