H E Bates: 39 books

Published in 1970, The Triple Echo was Bates's last significant novella, but one which he described as taking twenty-five years to complete. Set in the 1940s, the wife of a war prisoner lives in desperate loneliness and fear on an isolated farmstead. She encounters a young farmboy completely...

First published in 1960, this collection of four novellas continue Bates's sensitive, often witty, explorations of unhappy love. The title story, 'An Aspidistra in Babylon', is a reminiscence of a girl's loss of innocence. Christine, who describes herself at eighteen as 'dull as one of the...

Stories about children are not always for children. In The Watercress Girl, H. E. Bates masterfully depicts a childhood which, by proxy, reveals the mystifying world of the adult. Through a series of short, lyrical stories, the complexities of the world are seen with crystalline purity through the...

First published in 1961, Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal and Other Stories is a collection full of light and shade, setting sensitive character studies against Bates's signature vibrant, delicate imagery. A fussy and obsessive golfer encounters a troubled young woman at a wind-swept beach in 'Lost Ball',...

The Cruise of the Breadwinner is an adventure at sea, following Snowy as he comes of age through a shower of sea-spray and bullets. The youngest crew member on a coastal patrol boat, he longs for action as his sharp eyes pick out distant plane battles and his ears strain to the sound of faint gun-fire....

Seven Tales and Alexander beautifully captures a spectrum of emotions from innocent childhood and early adolescence, to those of simple-hearted and uninquiring old age. On its original release in 1929 (The Scholartis Press), The New Statesman observed that Bates has 'by seeing with a child's eyes,...

Published posthumously in 1976, these stories include some familiar characters and scenarios, as well as an uncharacteristic vignette portraying urban hooligans. The title story, 'The Yellow Meads of Asphodel', looks at the apparently stagnant lives of a brother and sister, both in their forties,...

First published in 1964, The Fabulous Mrs. V. is a late collection of twelve stories celebrating comedy and Bates's ability to paint amusing, idiosyncratic women. 'A Couple of Fools' follows two fashionable young women, ripe for a luxurious Sunday afternoon outing, who find that their flamboyant...

Published in 1972, The Song of the Wren contains some light entertainments in the style of the Uncle Silas tales, alongside some more serious stories concerning thwarted love, love triangles, and, in two of the cases, the violence that comes out of psyches twisted by love. 'The Song of the...

'An honest and skillfully told love story' - New York Times Lydia - shy, sheltered, beautiful and just nineteen - glides into Evensford one wintry day, stirring up feeling amongst the town's young men. But it is the young Mr Richardson that she befriends. As winter turns to drowsy summer, his...

In this collection of five novellas, Bates contrasts two comic stories with the atmospheric title story, and includes a complex psychological tale alongside the romantically bleak. 'The Golden Oriole' features a fragile and troubled woman, frozen in a stultifying and unconsummated marriage,...

The Wedding Party, first published in 1965 (Michael Joseph), is a collection of short stories evoking both the dark and light, and the comedy and tragedy in human nature. Bates employs a deceptive delicateness of touch in his descriptions and character sketches, here mastering the true essentials...

The Nature of Love (Michael Joseph, 1953) was Bates's first published collection of novellas. It contains three stories, different in weight but similar in texture, drawing from rural landscapes and the sensitive, poignant studies of the people that bring them to life. Dulcima, dedicated...

First published in 1968, The Wild Cherry Tree is a late collection of ten tales including comic vignettes, a humorous celebration of the sensual life, and several explorations of love, loneliness, and problematic relationships. 'The Wild Cherry Tree' sees the wife of a pig-farmer who dresses...