H. E. Bates

In 1931, Bates married Marjorie Helen. They moved to a village in Kent, Little Chart. They lived in a farm house with a big garden.

They had two sons and two daughters. His son Richard later adapted many of his father’s novels for TV with a fair amount of success. His youngest son, Jonathan, a sound engineer in movies, was nominated for Academy Award for his work for the film ‘Gandhi’.

Graham Greene praised Bates as a great short story writer and English successor to Anton Chekov.

H.E. Bates was born on 16 May 1905, to Albert Ernest Bates and Lucy Elizabeth. His father belonged to a family of shoe makers. His parents were Methodists, but he rejected all organised religious beliefs in his twenties.

Though he failed in public school entrance examination, he gained admission to Kettering Grammar School, where his English teacher, Edmund Kirby, encouraged him to become a writer.

At 16, he became a reporter for a local paper, but he did not like that job and later he worked in a warehouse, where he could spend lot of time writing.

His first novel, published in 1926, ‘The Two Sisters’, was actually his second novel as he had discarded the first one. This novel was also rejected by nine publishers, before being accepted by Edward Garnett, at Jonathan Cape.

Following his novel’s success, he moved to London and worked in the children’s department of John and Edward Bumpus, the booksellers. He wrote a children’s fantasy, titled, ‘The Seekers’ for the Bumpus brothers. This was his last formal job.

‘Catherine Foster’, which was published in 1929 was inspired by Madame Bovary, lacked his original style, which he later developed as a rural chronicler.

In 1930s, he became a mature writer and ‘Charlotte’s Row’, published in 1931, depicted his Northamptonshire experiences. With his novel, ‘The Poacher’ he established himself as a lyrical and unsentimental historian of the English rural life.

His short story collections like, ‘The Woman Who Had Imagination’ published in 1934, established him as a critically acclaimed short story writer of modern times. Another short story collection titled ‘Cut and Come Again’ published the next year, was considered his greatest achievement as a short story writer and as the English successor to Chekov.

‘Fair Stood the Wind For France’ was his first major commercial success. It was based on World War II. It is a story of a pilot who landed his plane in the occupied territory of France and a French farmer’s family. It was later adapted by BBC as a series, in 1980.

‘The Darling Buds of May’ is the most famous work of H.E. Bates. The Larkin family depicted in the book including Pop, Ma, Mariette and the children became immortal. He identified himself with Pop, a character he had met in a shop in Kent. This novel became a huge success and was adapted as TV serial by his son, Richard Bates.