Download or read book Best of H E Bates written by H. E. Bates and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-08-07 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The earliest of these stories, The Flame, was first published in 1926, having been written a year earlier, when I was twenty; the latest appeared in 1961. The intervening thirty-five years, together with the thirty-five stories I have chosen from that period, therefore give this collection its title, Seven by Five. My aim has been to make the book as widely representative of my work as a short story writer as possible, but I have nevertheless refrained from including any of the war-time stories I wrote under the pseudonym of 'Flying Officer X', any of the stories of Uncle Silas and any novellas, since these all belong, in my view, to quite separate categories. *The title of the British edition.
Download or read book Fair Stood the Wind for France written by H. E. Bates and published by . This book was released on 2023-05-25 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fair Stood the Wind for France, first published in 1944, is author H. E. Bates' fictional account of a downed English bomber-pilot and his crew over occupied France during World War II. The men are taken in by a French family who hide them in their home. However, the pilot, injured during the plane's landing, must remain in France to heal, while his crew begin their journey back to friendly territory. The pilot falls in love with the home-owner's daughter, their relationship grows and eventually they travel together across France, seeking a way back to England. Fair Stood the Wind for France rises above the average romance, however. Set against the horrors of war, it takes on a life-affirming force, enhanced by the simple, yet elegant prose of the author. Bates also excels at evoking a sense of place; much of the story occurs over the course of a hot summer in rural France, and there are many beautiful descriptions of the French countryside as it bakes in the summer heat. In 1980, the book was the subject of a 4-part television mini-series by the BBC.
Download or read book Elephant s Nest in a Rhubarb Tree Other Stories written by Herbert Ernest Bates and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 1989 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Readers who have discovered the delights of the British master storyteller H.E. Bates will welcome this third collection. Gathered here are twenty stories written between 1938 and 1964 which are gems of human observation.
Download or read book A Month by the Lake Other Stories written by Herbert Ernest Bates and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 1987 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "If we set H. E. Bates's best tales against the best of Chekhov's," Graham Greene declared, "I do not believe it would be possible, with any conviction, to argue that the Russian was the finer artist." The sampler of H. E. Bates stories presented here shows the merit of that praise and displays the range and aspects of Bates's work from his first published story, "The Flame," to one of his very last, "The Song of the Wren." In his long and prolific literary career, Bates (1905-1974) produced twenty-five novels, a three-volume autobiography, nine books of essays, several plays and children's books, as well as his important and perhaps most enduring achievement, twenty-three collections of short stories. A Month by the Lake & Other Stories displays Bates's extraordinary talent for concisely getting at the heart of the matter. Whether he is dealing with romance in middle age (the title story), or the almost painful clarity of a child's world ("The Cowslip Field"), or encapsulating the disintegration and tragedy of a man and a house and the era and class they represent ("The Flag")-Bates's compassion for humanity remains constant. As Anthony Burgess remarks in his introduction, Bates "achieved such sovereignty of what literary land he inherited that he deserves the homage of our uncomplicated enjoyment... Bates's affection for ordinary people is one of his shining virtues. But he himself, as I knew, and as this compilation should make clear, was, is, far from ordinary." Book jacket.
Download or read book The Song of the Wren written by H.E. Bates and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-11-10 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 Wren' features the intriguing Miss Shuttleworth as she spars with a young sociologist conducting a survey on various issues, leaving him dumfounded by her apparently mad behaviour and no more appreciative of nature than when he started. She appears again in 'Oh! Sweeter Than the Berry' where she proves herself more than a match for a visiting minister. Convincing him to try one homemade potion after another, she engages the tipsy Reverend in a theological debate until, stunned, he wobbles away and falls to his knees to pray for her. Taking a darker, more abstract turn 'The Man Who Loved Squirrels' is a tale of a woodsman who works alone and lives with his mother, finding company only in the forest's squirrels. A chance meeting with a traveling London woman disrupts his life and ends in tragedy. 'The Tiger Moth' depicts an affair between an airman and a schoolteacher, whose husband is missing in action. The tale hearkens back to Bates's war-time Flying Officer X stories in style, flight accounts, and pilot jargon. The bonus story 'Music for Christmas', first published in 1951, is a comic portrayal of provincial rivalries, involving a musical snob with London tastes, a north Midlands woman favouring local talent, and, relaying gossip and innuendo between the two, a grocery deliveryman.
Download or read book The New Southern Gentleman written by Jim Booth and published by Watchmaker Publishing. This book was released on 2002 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Daniel Randolph Deal is a Southern aristocrat, having the required bloodline, but little of the nobility. A man resistant to the folly of ethics, he prefers a selective, self-indulgent morality. He is a confessed hedonist, albeit responsibly so."--Back cover
Download or read book My Uncle Silas written by Herbert Ernest Bates and published by . This book was released on 1939 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Wedding Party written by H.E. Bates and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 of the art of the short story; he says much by saying little, what is left out more poignant than the words on the page. With a host of larger than life characters, we meet the scheming and eccentric Aunt Leonora, who fibs her way through the comic tale 'The Picnic'. The collection also unites two loveable rogues Captain Poopdeck and Uncle Silas, and brings us the farcical tale 'Early One Morning' which provide a sharp contrast with the sombre and haunting tones of pieces like 'The Primrose Place' and 'The Winter Sound', and the lyrical but bitter episode of 'The Wedding Party' itself.
Download or read book An Aspidistra in Babylon written by H.E. Bates and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-08-02 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 aspidistras that cluttered up ... our little boarding house' is seduced by the forty-year-old Captain Blaine, who charms her imagination with stories of a life on the Continent. 'A Month by the Lake' is a comedy of errors set in 1920s Lake Como revolving around two middle-aged vacationers unable to express their affection for each other. A film version starring James Fox, Vanessa Redgrave, and Uma Thurman was directed by John Irvin in 1995. Also featured in this collection is 'A Prospect of Orchards', as narrated by a familiarly mild-mannered Bates character, concerning unfolding affections and blossoming relationships in this quirky tale of extra-marital intrigue. In contrast to this is the darker tone of 'The Grapes of Paradise', where the narrator relates the tale of a fellow traveller in Tahiti, laced with callousness, jealousy, and violence. Included in this edition is bonus story 'The Duet', first published in 1935 and never before featured in any collection. It is the tale of a young choirmaster's son, eager for the autographs of two famous singers. Ignored throughout the day, he follows the players he now considers haughty to a private room where, though the keyhole, he spies an intimate and affectionate scene between them that changes his perceptions completely. The Spectator calls Bates 'a supreme anecdotalist, endowed with vast self-confidence and the gift of imagery ten times the size of life.'
Download or read book Royalty Inc written by Stephen Bates and published by Quarto Publishing Group USA. This book was released on 2015-09-03 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The former Guardian royal correspondent “wisely explores a host of issues surrounding the royals, from the monarchy’s role to the legacy of Diana” (Get Surrey). It was an amazing feat in the twenty-frst century that Queen Elizabeth II, a small woman in her late-eighties, was one of the most recognisable people on the planet. The world had utterly, irreversibly, and radically evolved since she ascended the throne in 1952 and yet, in an era of instant celebrity, she remained, more popular than ever: a bastion of certainty and comfort to the British and many other people during uncertain times. But with her death on September 8, 2022, questions remain: How secure is the British Royal Family? How much depended on the person of the Queen herself, and how much on the institution? To answer these questions, Royalty Inc. combines a history of the British Crown’s evolution through the modern age with a journalistic peek behind the curtain at the machinery that sustains the Windsors today. Written by the Guardian’s former Royal correspondent, its line is neither royalist nor republican. Instead it takes a clear-eyed look at a host of issues, including the future of the Commonwealth, the Monarchy’s role in the British constitution and class system, King Charles’ notorious “black spider memos,” the true scale of the Royal finances, the legacy of Diana, and the problems and pressures faced by any heir to the throne in the future. “Fearless and perceptive . . . Stephen Bates tells it like it is, covering every aspect with rare humour and intelligence. I couldn’t recommend it more highly.” —Literary Review
Download or read book The Darling Buds of May written by H. E. Bates and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 1991-03-05 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Short comic novel about an unconventional English farmer and his attempts to snare a husband for his daughter.
Download or read book The Triple Echo written by H.E. Bates and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-12-06 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 out of his element as a soldier, and the two carve out a relationship in defiance of the war around them. His decision to escape the military and to dress as his lover's sister to avoid detection eventually leads to tragedy. In a late essay Bates discusses the long evolution of the story's plot, conceived in 1943 with two sisters and completed in 1968 with just one, in what Bates calls 'an exceptional example of stumbling and groping or, if you will, of my own prolonged stupidity.' A film version starring Oliver Reed, Brian Deacon, and Glenda Jackson was premiered in November 1972, and issued in the United States with the title Soldiers in Skirts.
Download or read book A Breath of French Air written by H. E. Bates and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Little of What You Fancy written by H. E. Bates and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Larkin family’s rich spirit is tested when Pop has a heart attack in this series finale by the author of The Darling Buds of May. Pop Larkin enjoys the finer things in life, like good food and drink, but too much of it leads him to a mild heart attack. Placed on bedrest and an uncharacteristically strict diet, the family patriarch soon finds himself in low spirits. As nurses try their hand at helping Pop get well, Ma pursues alternative remedies. And Primrose, meanwhile, is in hot pursuit of the dashing Mr. Candy. But when it is discovered the government has plans to run a railroad through the Larkins’ home, it is all hands on deck as the Larkins, their community, and even Pop rise up to prove that the country way of life is always worth fighting for . . . Praise for the Pop Larkin Chronicles “The Larkins live—these novels please us by escaping definition.” —The Guardian “Like Wodehouse’s Jeeves, Bates’ Larkins must continue in their own delightful milieu—in this case the Kentish countryside.” —The New York Times
Download or read book Through the Woods written by Herbert Ernest Bates and published by Nature Classics Library. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bates describes a single woodland year in this enchanting book.
Download or read book Invisible written by Marni Bates and published by Kensington Books. This book was released on 2013-06-25 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maintaining a low profile in order to survive high school, Jane Smith receives unwanted attention when she publishes an article in the school newspaper that reveals some of the popular kids' secrets.
Download or read book The Sleepless Moon written by H. E. Bates and published by . This book was released on 1964 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
