H. E. Bates on the real-life inspiration behind the Larkin family

he_facebook_post.jpg

Features

From the author of The Darling Buds of May, the inspiration behind The Larkins

My Uncle Silas

A new edition of the famous stories first published in magazines in the 1930s

H. E. Bates was born in Northamptonshire in 1905. He published his first novel, The Two Sisters, when he was twenty, and for the next decade built up a reputation as a writer of great versatility. During the Second World War Bates was commissioned by the RAF as a short story writer, where he wrote the acclaimed How Sleep the Brave and The Greatest People in the World. His most popular creation was the effervescent Larkin family about whom he wrote five novels including The Darling Buds of May and A Little of What You Fancy. In 1973 H. E. Bates was awarded the C.B.E. He died in 1974.

The deeds and misdeeds of Uncle Silas, the rural reprobate, were renowned in the short stories H E Bates published in the 1930s.In this collection the stories are presented in full, accompanied by the original drawings by Edward Ardizzone that perfectly capture the little reed-thatched house atop a violet-banked lane.Over the course of ninety-five years Uncle Silas found the time to do most things: He boasted of the villains he had knocked to kingdom come as he boasted of the women whose hearts he had truly captured. Crotchety, vainglorious, occasionally wicked, he maintained a devilish spark of audacity which made him so attractive to everyone he met.

H.E. Bates

These stories, wry, often poignant, still move the reader today

After 60 years of writing and reading, I would place H.E. Bates as one of the best short-story writers of my time

One of the most vividly evocative writers of English ... able to conjure up in a handful of words whole landscapes and moods

H.E. Bates could achieve a quality of lyrical intensity that few contemporary novelists can match

He was without an equal in England in the kind of story he had made his own and stood in the direct line of succession of fiction writers of English countryside and that includes George Eliot, Hardy and D. H. Lawrence

H. E. Bates, in my opinion, is a much finer writer than is commonly realised. His sensitiveness to beauty and to character is astonishing

Complete Stories of Flying Officer 'X'

Heroic and moving accounts of the R.A.F. in war time by the author of Fair Stood the Wind for France and The Darling Buds of May 
 
'After 60 years of writing and reading, I would place H.E. Bates as one of the best short-story writers of my time' Graham Greene 
 
First published under the pseudonym of Flying Officer X, H. E. Bates’s stories of the heroic exploits of British bomber crews during the Second World War created a sensation when they appeared in 1942, selling over two million copies all over the world. Bates lived among the painfully young pilots and recorded their lives, and those of their loved ones, with an emotional attention that deeply moved the generation that lived through the war, and an intensity that reverberates down the decades.

H.E. Bates

Praise for How Sleep the Brave

These stories, wry, often poignant, still move the reader today

After 60 years of writing and reading, I would place H.E. Bates as one of the best short-story writers of my time

One of the most vividly evocative writers of English ... able to conjure up in a handful of words whole landscapes and moods

These stories, wry, often poignant, still move the reader today

After 60 years of writing and reading, I would place H.E. Bates as one of the best short-story writers of my time

One of the most vividly evocative writers of English ... able to conjure up in a handful of words whole landscapes and moods

These stories, wry, often poignant, still move the reader today

After 60 years of writing and reading, I would place H.E. Bates as one of the best short-story writers of my time

One of the most vividly evocative writers of English ... able to conjure up in a handful of words whole landscapes and moods

Books by H.E. Bates

Articles featuring H.E. Bates

H. E. Bates on the real-life inspiration behind the Larkin family

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter