H. E. Bates

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal and Other Stories (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

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', a retired Colonel, isolated and suffering from dementia, suddenly rejects the friendship of his charming neighbour when she acquires a television in 'Where the Cloud Breaks'.

The title story, 'Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal,' takes its name from a Tennyson poem and is a picture of social change in post-war rural England. It draws a portrait of a sheltered and uncultured butcher's wife exposed to a new tenant in the countryside - a flamboyant homosexual who delights in throwing large parties.

Of the collection as a whole, the Times Literary Supplement says the stories 'all confirm Mr Bates's position in the first rank of contemporary short-story writers.'

Also included in this collection is bonus story 'The Grace Note', first published in the Fortnightly in 1936. It is a humorous tale of the Chipperfields, a family of brass players devoted to music, but whose jealousy and stubbornness dashes their dreams of a Chipperfield band and tears the family apart.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury UK
• Seitenzahl: 208
• Erscheinungstermin: 5. Juli 2016
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781448215249
• Artikelnr.: 45252810

Autorenporträt

H. E. Bates was born in 1905 in the shoe-making town of Rushden, Northamptonshire, and educated at Kettering Grammar School. After leaving school, he worked as a reporter and as a clerk in a leather warehouse. Many of his stories depict life in the rural Midlands, particularly his native Northamptonshire, where he spent many hours wandering the countryside.

His first novel, The Two Sisters (1926) was published by Jonathan Cape when he was just twenty. Many critically acclaimed novels and collections of short stories followed. During WWII he was commissioned into the RAF solely to write short stories, which were published under the pseudonym 'Flying Officer X'. His first financial success was Fair Stood the Wind for France (1944), followed by two novels about Burma, The Purple Plain (1947) and The Jacaranda Tree (1949) and one set in India, The Scarlet Sword (1950). Other well-known novels include Love for Lydia (1952) and The Feast of July (1954).

His most popular creation was the Larkin family which featured in five novels beginning with The Darling Buds of May in 1958. The later television adaptation was a huge success. Many other stories were adapted for the screen, the most renowned being The Purple Plain (1947) starring Gregory Peck, and The Triple Echo (1970) with Glenda Jackson and Oliver Reed.

H. E. Bates married in 1931, had four children and lived most of his life in a converted granary near Charing in Kent. He was awarded the CBE in 1973, shortly before his death in 1974.