Painting Fakes

I once tried to write a novel and I tell you, it's not as easy as it seems.  Mine was terrible.  I gave it to a couple of trusted friends to read, they kindly damned it with faint praise, and that was that. In the meantime of course I do enjoy good novels that other people write, and I often find myself drawn to where they began.  Perhaps its my parents' fault.  One of my favourites among my dad's science fiction books was an anthology called First Flight: Maiden Voyages in Space and Time  which contained the impressive first published short stories of some of the luminaries of post-war science fiction, including such names as Robert Heinlein, Brian Aldiss, Theodore Sturgeon, Arthur C Clarke and AE Van Vogt.  I know this because I still have it on my shelf. Later on my mother gave me a lovely coffee-table book (which I also still have) called First Glance: Childhood Creations of the Famous.  This drew its net far wider, including such curiosities a...