Also know P.G. Wodehouse, who said:
“When I was starting out as a writer—this would be about the time Caxton invented the printing press—Conan Doyle was my hero. Others might revere Hardy and Meredith. I was a Doyle man, and I still am. Usually we tend to discard the idols of our youth as we grow older, but I have not had this experience with A.C.D. I thought him swell then, and I think him swell now.”
It’s true that we do discard the heroes of our youth - sometimes to rediscover them much later in life. I need to read those stories again.
Did you know that it was King Richard the Third who encouraged Caxton to produce books in English for the general public? He was not fond of Latin and wanted to encourage English as the language of government.