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 relationsh...

The rich spirit of an English junk dealer and his family is challenged by the arrival of the tax collector in this humorous and heartwarming classic.Beneath the sunny, cloudless skies of Kent, the Larkin household—Pop, Ma, and their six children—enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Pop works as a junk dealer and keeps the farm to feed his brood, while Ma cooks the meals and minds the children. While the family may not seem to have much, they more than make up for it ...

At thirty-four, H.E. Bates was deemed too old for active service in WWII. But as a successful author, was commissioned by the nascent RAP Public Relations unit to publicise the bravery of the fighter pilots. Bates was posted to Oakington and Tangmere air bases where, over drinks with the pilots, he gathered their stories and wrote them as Flying Officer X.The stories convey the pilots' personal qualities and the forces that motivated them. They blend the action and suspens...

Bates's famous loveable rogue, Uncle Silas, has a unique range of work to his name. For the first time, all of these stories are gathered together in one collection, allowing readers to experience Silas from multiple perspectives.Some tales offer sly, affectionate glimpses of the narrator's great-uncle Silas – the rural oldster of the earthy, boozy, incorrigible school. But there is also an active tenderness as seen in 'The Revelation,' where the narrator watches old Silas being gi...

'An honest and skillfully told love story' - New York TimesLydia - 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 world becomes a wondrous place, full only of Lydia; but a change comes over the once retiring girl as she discovers the effect she has on other...

An English junk dealer and his family get up to mischief and misadventure, in the first three novels of this "pulsing comedy of country manners" ( Time).The Darling Buds of MayBeneath the sunny skies of Kent, the Larkin family—Pop, Ma, and their six children—enjoy the simple pleasures of life. All of that could change, however, when Cedric Charlton from Inland Revenue appears on their farm. Cedric has come to inquire why the...

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.Originally published in 1970, The Triple Echo was Bates's last significant novell...

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 eyes of children. We experience the joyous and painful clarity of youth, full of fears, hopes and make-believe, and the trust and mistrust of the adult world.A little boy, charme...

A rural British family gets new neighbors—and new troubles—in this comic classic by the author of The Darling Buds of May.Gore Court is a run-down country house that junk dealer Pop Larkin intends to convert into a bungalow for his daughter and son-in-law. But Mr. and Mrs. Jerebohm, a wealthy couple from London, arrive desperate to buy the place. Spotting the naivete of the social-climbing pair, Pop manages to get them to agree to pay a ridiculous amount. N...

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 to W. Somerset Maugham, is a tale of a simple girl in rural England whose manipulation of both an old widower and a young forest worker has tragic results. In 1971, EMI Prod...

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 ...

The Larkins travel to France for some sun and relaxation—only to be met with disaster—in this comic classic by the author of The Darling Buds of May.At summer's end, rain clouds hovering over Kent have some in the Larkin household feeling under the weather in more ways than one. Ma is exhausted from nursing newborn Oscar, and Mariette needs a break.Meanwhile, Mariette's husband, Charley, reminisces about delightful summers spent in Brittany during hi...