H. E. Bates
Herbert Ernest Bates, commonly known as H. E. Bates, was a notable British writer of the twentieth century, celebrated primarily for his short stories. Born in Rushden, England, in a family with a shoemaking background, Bates sought to escape this trade through education but ultimately faced setbacks, which led him to take on various jobs while pursuing his passion for writing. His literary career began in earnest in 1926 with the publication of his first novel, *The Two Sisters*, though it was not financially successful. Bates's true recognition came in the 1940s with his military-themed stories published under the pseudonym "Flying Officer X" and his World War II novels, such as *Fair Stood the Wind for France*.
Despite his prolific output, Bates faced mixed critical reception, particularly after the war, as his later works began to mirror previous themes and styles, leading to a perceived decline in quality. Nonetheless, his writing is characterized by a deep exploration of themes such as freedom versus constraint, with an emphasis on nature and individuality. Bates's ability to capture the essence of the early twentieth century Midlands and his innovative approach to modernist storytelling solidify his status as a significant figure in British literature, particularly for his contributions to the short story genre.
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H. E. Bates
English short-story writer and novelist
- Born: May 16, 1905
- Birthplace: Rushden, Northamptonshire, England
- Died: January 29, 1974
- Place of death: Canterbury, Kent, England
Biography
Herbert Ernest Bates was one of the most prolific British writers of the twentieth century. He published dozens of novels and novellas, but his reputation rests primarily on his first love: the short story. Bates was born in the Midlands shoemaking center of Rushden, England; both of his grandfathers had been shoemakers, and his father, a stern Methodist, owned his own shoemaking business. Yet as a young man Bates did not look upon the trade with fondness, and he tried to escape the factories through education. He was a good student, but not quite good enough to win a scholarship to the public school at Wellingborough. Bates was so discouraged by this early failure that he eventually forfeited an opportunity to attend Cambridge University and instead embarked on a series of odd jobs.
Bates stole time from one of these jobs, as a warehouseman, to write stories and poems. These early works were rejected by journal after journal until, in 1926, he finally had a novel published by Jonathan Cape. The book, The Two Sisters, received warm reviews but was not a financial success. In 1931, Bates married Marjorie Helen Cox and purchased a converted granary in Kent, where he lived with his wife and children until his death in 1974. To support himself and his family, he wrote more than one volume of fiction every year, in addition to producing reviews, essays, monographs on country life, and a column for The Spectator.
This massive output did not always bring critical or commercial success; indeed, for Bates the two seem almost to have been mutually exclusive. With only a few exceptions, his finest work in both the short story and the novel was written in the 1930’s. Fame did not come, however, until the 1940’s, when, under the pseudonym “Flying Officer X,” Bates wrote two collections of stories about the military air force. (The collections had been commissioned by the British Air Ministry.) During the next decade, Bates wrote a series of commercially successful novels set in World War II, of which the first, Fair Stood the Wind for France, became the best known. These novels were harshly reviewed by critics, who, ironically, tended to ignore the much finer efforts written in the same period (among them Dear Life, which may well be Bates’s most undervalued novel).
Bates was so embittered by the critics’ attacks that he more than once threatened to stop writing novels. Nevertheless, for the last two decades of his life his production continued unabated, and he even found two new genres in which to work, film scripts and novellas. Bates’s last major published work, the novella The Triple Echo, may well be his finest piece of fiction.
Bates is best known for his mastery of the familiar modernist short-story devices: indirection, psychological penetration of character, and an unadorned style. Not only do his finest stories demonstrate these characteristics but so, too, do such apparently atypical efforts as the often comical Uncle Silas tales. His novels are hardly daring technically but rely instead on a rich evocation of time and place—most frequently the Midlands of the early twentieth century—and a colorful cast of characters.
Regardless of the genre, setting, or characters involved, one theme appears repeatedly in Bates’s fiction: freedom versus constraint. Constraint comes in many forms, physical and spiritual, and includes poverty, religious fanaticism, class consciousness, government bureaucracy, and soulless urban sprawl. Freedom to Bates means individuality, sexual liberation, and, always, nature.
Bates’s reputation suffered after World War II. Out of economic necessity he wrote continually, but the aesthetic quality of what he wrote suffered. He repeated his themes, settings, and character types until they lost their effectiveness, especially in the novels. Even in his strongest genre, the short story, it can hardly be argued that Bates grew much after his achievements in the 1930’s. Those achievements are, however, distinctive enough to earn for Bates a place as a major figure in modern British literature.
Bibliography
Alderson, Frederick. “Bates Country: A Memoir of H. E. Bates.” London Magazine 19 (July, 1979): 31-42. Presents a personal account of Alderson’s friendship with Bates, including their times together in the Royal Air Force during World War II. Comments on Bates’s writings, calling his style “impressionistic.”
Allen, Walter. The Short Story in English. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1981. Part of this comprehensive commentary on short-story writers explores the short stories of Bates, whom Allen credits with “consist excellence.” Contains extracts from Bates’s work to illustrate his range of social types and scenes, with particular emphasis given to The Cruise of the Breadwinner.
Baldwin, Dean R. “Atmosphere in the Stories of H. E. Bates.” Studies in Short Fiction 21 (Summer, 1984): 215-222. Discusses Bates’s naturalistic and romantic stories, focusing on how Bates uses atmosphere; argues that Bates’s stories seem simple on the surface, but deserve more attention than they have received for the subtlety of their technique.
Baldwin, Dean R. H. E. Bates: A Literary Life. Selinsgrove, Pa.: Susquehanna University Press, 1987. Biography has proved to be a more reliable source of information about Bates than his own three-volume autobiography. Includes extensive commentary on his novels and short stories.
Baldwin, Dean R. “H. E. Bates: The Poacher.” In Recharting the Thirties, edited by Patrick J. Quinn. Selinsgrove, Pa.: Susquehanna University Press, 1996. Discussion of Bates’s 1935 novel The Poacher is included in an essay collection that seeks to refamiliarize readers with British authors who have been largely ignored since their major works first appeared in the 1930’s. The essay is preceded by a brief biographical sketch of Bates.
Beachcroft, T. O. The Modest Art: A Survey of the Short Story in English. London: Oxford University Press, 1968. Beachcroft discusses Bates numerous times in the context of the modern English short story. Most interesting is his discussion of the author’s use of Midland characters and themes.
Eads, Peter. H. E. Bates: A Bibliographical Study. 1990. Reprint. London: Oak Knoll Press and the British Library, 2007. Provides a good collection of bibliographical material on Bates and offers full details of first editions of all Bates’s works, adding comments from reviews and the writer’s autobiography.
Evenson, Brian. “H. E. Bates.” In British Novelists Between the Wars, edited by George M. Johnson. Vol. 191 in Dictionary of Literary Biography. Detroit, Mich.: Gale Group, 1998. Essay on Bates provides biographical information, analysis of his work, and a bibliography.
Frierson, William. The English Novel in Transition, 1885-1940. New York: Cooper Square, 1965. Discusses the influence of Anton Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, and D. H. Lawrence on Bates’s work and argues that pessimism is the most fundamental connective thread in his fiction.
Hughes, Douglas. “The Eclipsing of V. S. Pritchett and H. E. Bates: A Representative Case of Critical Myopia.” Studies in Short Fiction 19 (Fall, 1982): iii-v. Complains that Pritchett and Bates have been allowed to slip into oblivion by editors and critics; argues that editors and groups of professors should not presume to dictate which story writers can or cannot be written about.
Miller, Henry. Preface to The Best of H. E. Bates, by H. E. Bates. Boston: Little, Brown, 1963. Miller discusses Bates’s use of nature imagery and themes, plus his humor and “obsession with pain.”
Vannatta, Dennis. H. E. Bates. Boston: Twayne, 1983. Good introductory work provides less biographical information than Baldwin’s biography (cited above) but more critical commentary. Includes useful bibliography of primary and secondary sources.