H. E. Bates - Böcker

Take a perfick trip to France in the second book of this much-loved series, inspiration for the ITV drama THE LARKINS starring Bradley Walsh'I should like to go to France,' said Ma.'God Almighty,' Pop said. 'What for?''For a holiday of course,' Ma said. 'I think it would do us all good to get some sun.'And so at the end of a rainy English August the Larkins - all ten of them, including little Oscar, the family's new addition - bundle into the old Rolls and cross the Channel to escape the hostile elements.But far from being the balmy, sunny and perfick spot Ma Larkin hoped for, France proves less than welcoming to an eccentric English family. The tea's weak, the furniture breakable and the hotel manager is almost as hostile as the wind and the rain they've brought with them!And when the manager learns that Ma and Pop are unmarried yet sharing a room under his roof, the trouble really begins . . .

'Teetotal!' Ma said. 'It's a libel. He'll never live it down. He'll never be able to hold his head up again. Whatever will people think? What's he going to say when anybody asks him to have one?''No,' said Dr Conner.'You'll have to strap him down,' Ma said. 'You'll have to put the handcuffs on.'And so after a mild heart-attack - caused by rather too much of what you fancy - Pop Larkin finds himself off the booze, off the good food and off the good life generally, much to his own and everyone's else's horror and upset. And while Ma tries to find ways around 'doctor's orders', young Primrose is finding her own way round a rather flustered - not to say flushed - Mr Candy ...

Join the Larkins for another adventure in the much-loved series, inspiration for the new ITV drama starring Bradley Walsh'Christening? We never said nothing about no christening, Ma, did we?'And so with the appearance of a letter announcing the imminent arrival of Madame Dupont, Pop and Ma Larkin learn that little Oscar and Blenheim - Charley and Mariette's new boy - are to be christened.In fact, once Mr Candy - who will be officiating (much to raven-haired Primrose's delight) - learns that Pop and Ma have neglected the entire Larkin brood, the whole family seems set for a dunking!Pop, who needs no excuse to open a few bottles of Dragon's Blood and host the perfick party, rushes out and buys a fun fair to celebrate.But there are one or two gatecrashers even Pop hadn't counted on turning up . . .

'Home looks nice. Allus does though, don't it? Perfick'And so the Larkins - Pop, Ma, Mariette, Zinnia, Petunia, Primrose, Victoria and Montgomery - return from an outing for fish and chips and ice cream one May evening. There, amid the rustic charms of home, they discover a visitor: one Cedric Charlton, Her Majesty's inspector of taxes.Mr Charlton is visiting to find out why junk-dealer Pop hasn't paid his tax - but nothing's that simple at the Larkins. Mariette takes a shine to 'Charley' - as Pop calls him - and before long the family have introduced the uncomplaining inspector to the delights of country living: the lusty scents of wild flowers, the pleasures of a bottle of Dragon's Blood, cold cream dribbled over a bowl of strawberries and hot, hot summer nights.In fact, soon Charley can't see any reason to return to the office at all . . .

Take a trip to Larkin country in the much-loved series, inspiration for the ITV drama THE LARKINS starring Bradley Walsh'There!' Pop said. 'There's the house. There's Gore Court for you. What about that, eh? How's that strike you? Better than St Paul's, ain't it, better than St Paul's?'And so Pop Larkin - junk-dealer, family man and Dragon's Blood connoisseur - manages to sell the nearby crumbling, tumbling country home to city dwellers Mr and Mrs Jerebohm for a pretty bundle of notes. Now he can build his daughter Mariette the pool she's long been nagging him for.But the Larkin's new neighbours aren't quite so accepting of country ways - especially Pop's little eccentricities.In fact, it's not long before a wobbly boat, a misplaced pair of hands and Mrs Jerebohm's behind have Pop up before a magistrate . . .

When John Franklin brings his plane down into Occupied France at the height of the Second World war, there are two things in his mind - the safety of his crew and his own badly injured arm. It is a stroke of unbelievable luck when the family of a French farmer risk their lives to offer the airmen protection. During the hot summer weeks that follow, the English officer and the daughter of the house are drawn inexorably to each other...

Full of mounting suspense and masterly characterisation, Bates's popular wartime novel tells the story of three very different men who, after their aircraft crashes, are forced to trek across the Burmese wilderness to safety. It is reissued by Methuen along with "The Jacaranda Tree" and "The Purple Plain" and to coincide with the re-publication in one volume of Bates' acclaimed autobiographies - "The Vanished World", "The Blossoming World" and "World in Ripeness".

This is a reissue of a Bates classic. Betrayed by her lover, Bella Ford sets out on a journey to find him and exact her revenge. Instead, however, her arduous search brings her to the home of the Wainwright family: the pious and good-natured Wainwright, his tough and uncompromising wife, their daughter, Nell and their three very different sons, sensitive Matty, quick-tempered Con and sedate Jedd. Slowly, and in their individual ways the Wainrights restore Bella's trust and, sharing the hardships and pleasure of their lives, she again finds happiness and love. Then, at the traditional Feast of July, the past comes crashing back into Bella's life, and with it, violent and terrible tragedy. First published in 1954, this timeless love story demonstrates Bates' richly lyrical prose and his literary relationship with the English countryside. Reissued by Methuen along with "The Jacaranda Tree" and "The Purple Plain" and to coincide with the republication in one volume of Bates's acclaimed autobiographies - "The Vanished World", "The Blossoming World" and "World in Ripeness".

This is a reissue of Bates's acclaimed novel of Burma. During World War II, a small English community are forced to flee when Japanese forces invade Burma. Paterson, the manager of a rice-mill, organises the evacuation and takes with him his Burmese mistress and her young brother. The rest of the party take along their prejudices, their pettiness and their squabbles, and a small enclave of English insularity moves north through Burma. Inevitably, as the journey continues, bitterness, tension and insoluble conflict unfold...Inspired by Bates' period of service in the Eastern theatre of war, "The Jacaranda Tree" skillfully evokes the atmosphere of Burma during the chaos of invasion. Reissued by Methuen along with "The Jacaranda Tree" and "The Purple Plain" and to coincide with the republication in one volume of Bates's acclaimed autobiographies - "The Vanished World", "The Blossoming World" and "World in Ripeness".

"The Sleepless Moon" opens with the marriage of Constance and Melford Turner, with Constance's dreamlike walk across the square of Orlingford: when the warm summer wind ripples her white silk dress against her skin, she feels 'astonishingly free and exalted'. Although she is shy and quiet, Constance is also sensual and sexual, but we discover on her wedding night that she is doomed to a passionless marriage, and the arrival of a young pianist, Frankie Johnson, drives their marriage even further apart. "The Sleepless Moon" is about the bleak and unforgiving nature of insomnia, of restlessness, repressed passion and dislocation. Orlingford is a town where it is hard to differentiate between pleasure and pain: the wonder of a moment is ignored, misconstrued or overridden by the fear of it passing. Pleasure is never more than fleeting and the characters are speechless in their supplication for help and understanding; repressed emotions manifest themselves in peculiar character traits and habit, and dreams are more vivid and warm than life.

This play version of the H.E. Bates novel centres on the Larkin family, who live in Kent "somewhere at the end of a rainbow". When an ernest young tax official turns up one hot May afternoon in 1957 to investigate Pop's income tax contributions, he is bewitched by eldest daughter Mariette.

The six long stories of A Party for the Girls present H.E. Bates at his finest. A crack shot at understated tragedy, Bates is perhaps at his best with comedy and character––consider the opening line of the title story: “Miss Tompkins, who was seventy-six, bright pink-looking in a bath-salts sort of way and full of an alert but dithering energy, looked out the drawing-room window for the twentieth time since breakfast and found herself growing increasingly excited.” Though virtually unknown here, as Publishers Weekly put it in their review of Bates’s A Month by the Lake & Other Stories (1987), his nearly perfect stories…should set his readers clamoring for more… He is as adept at the seductive rise and fall of his narrative voice as he is cunning with naturalistic dialogue. Comparisons to Joyce, Chekhov, and Mansfield are inevitable.

The six long stories of A Party for the Girls present H.E. Bates at his finest. A crack shot at understated tragedy, Bates is perhaps at his best with comedy and character––consider the opening line of the title story: “Miss Tompkins, who was seventy-six, bright pink-looking in a bath-salts sort of way and full of an alert but dithering energy, looked out the drawing-room window for the twentieth time since breakfast and found herself growing increasingly excited.” Though virtually unknown here, as Publishers Weekly put it in their review of Bates’s A Month by the Lake & Other Stories (1987), his nearly perfect stories…should set his readers clamoring for more… He is as adept at the seductive rise and fall of his narrative voice as he is cunning with naturalistic dialogue. Comparisons to Joyce, Chekhov, and Mansfield are inevitable.

Readers who have discovered the delights of the British master storyteller H.E. Bates in A Month by the Lake and A Party for the Girls (published by New Directions in 1987 and 1988) will welcome this third collection, Elephant’s Nest in a Rhubarb Tree. Gathered here are twenty stories written between 1938 and 1964 which, like those of Chekhov, to whom Bates has often been compared, are gems of human observation. There is the sheer hilarity of “An Italian Haircut,” the wincing cruelty of “The Captain,” the childhood enchantment of “Love in a Wych Elm,” the estrangments of divorce in “Some Other Spring”––to mention just a few of the colors on H.E. Bates’ palette. And any reader who has met the dotty Aunt Leonora (in “The Chords of Youth” and ”A Month by the Lake”) will relish meeting her again in the “The Trespasser,” the concluding story of this volume.

It is no surprise that the Air Ministry chose an author of H.E. Bates' talents to portray the battle over the night skies of Britain whilst the war against Germany was still to reach its conclusion. For his rich prose excites and inspires as much as it informs. Bates opens his stirring story by analyzing the comparative efforts of the RAF and the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain and the decision by the Germans to turn to attacking British towns and cities, first during daytime, then, as losses mounted, at night. At first, the RAF's night fighters achieved only limited success, with the ground stations and the pilots unable to track down the intruders in the dark. But that was soon to change. The volunteers of the Royal Observer Corps became increasingly adept at identifying the movement of enemy planes by sound alone and to help the antiaircraft batteries defending London, lines of sound locators were established which measured the course and speed of the intruders to be measured, enabling the batteries to calculate the point and time that the enemy would cross the barrage line. It was a similar method of radiolocation that enabled the RAF's night fighters to hunt down the enemy bombers and to make the British night skies a deadly battleground for German machines. Whilst antiaircraft guns accounting for most of the enemy aircraft destroyed over Britain in the early months of the Blitz, as the war progressed the RAF's night fighters became increasingly effective as new technologies were adopted that enabled pilots to locate their enemies. H.E. Bates tells a tale of harrowing scenes of destruction in London, Coventry and across Britain delivered by an 'unseen' and seemingly unstoppable enemy, that gradually evolves into one of success and victory - and it is written with the consummate and concise prose of a master raconteur.