books in order

H E Bates Books In Order

Pop Larkin Books In Order

  1. The Darling Buds of May (1958)
  2. A Breath of French Air (1959)
  3. When the Green Woods Laugh (1960)
  4. Oh! to Be in England (1963)
  5. A Little of What You Fancy (1970)
  6. The Pop Larkin Chronicles (1990)

Novels

  1. The Two Sisters (1926)
  2. Charlotte’s Row (1931)
  3. The Fallow Land (1932)
  4. The Poacher (1935)
  5. A House of Women (1936)
  6. Spella Ho (1938)
  7. The Cruise of the Breadwinner (1947)
  8. The Scarlet Sword (1950)
  9. Love for Lydia (1952)
  10. The Purple Plain (1952)
  11. Feast of July (1954)
  12. The Jacaranda Tree (1955)
  13. The Sleepless Moon (1956)
  14. Fair Stood the Wind for France (1958)
  15. Catherine Foster (1959)
  16. The Day of the Tortoise (1961)
  17. A Crown of Wild Myrtle (1962)
  18. Achilles and Twins (1964)
  19. A Moment in Time (1964)
  20. Distant Horns of Summer (1967)
  21. The Four Beauties (1968)
  22. Down the River (1968)
  23. White Admiral (1968)
  24. The Triple Echo (1970)
  25. The Flying Goat (1973)
  26. Dulcima (1973)

Omnibus

Collections

  1. Day’s End (1928)
  2. Seven Tales and Alexander (1929)
  3. The Woman Who Had Imagination, and Other Stories (1934)
  4. Cut and Come Again (1935)
  5. Something Short and Sweet (1937)
  6. My Uncle Silas (1939)
  7. Black Boxer (1940)
  8. The Bride Comes to Evansford (1943)
  9. How Sleep the Brave (1943)
  10. Thirty-one Selected Tales (1947)
  11. Colonel Julian (1951)
  12. The Stories of Flying Officer ‘X’ (1952)
  13. The Nature of Love (1953)
  14. The Daffodil Sky (1955)
  15. Death of a Huntsman (1957)
  16. Sugar for the Horse (1957)
  17. The Watercress Girl, and Other Stories (1959)
  18. An Aspidistra in Babylon (1960)
  19. The Grapes of Paradise (1960)
  20. Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal (1961)
  21. The Golden Oriole (1962)
  22. The Best of H. E. Bates (1963)
  23. Seven By Five (1963)
  24. The Fabulous Mrs. V (1964)
  25. The Wedding Party (1965)
  26. The Wild Cherry Tree (1968)
  27. The Song of the Wren (1972)
  28. The Beauty of the Dead (1973)
  29. Country Tales (1974)
  30. Good Corn and Other Stories (1974)
  31. Short Stories (1975)
  32. Poison Ladies and Other Stories (1976)
  33. The Yellow Meads of Asphodel (1976)
  34. A Party for the Girls (1988)
  35. Elephant’s Nest in a Rhubarb Tree (1989)
  36. Great World War II Stories (1989)
  37. A Month by the Lake (1995)
  38. Seven Tales (1996)
  39. More Tales of My Uncle Silas (2003)
  40. The Complete Flying Officer X Stories (2018)

Plays

Picture Books

  1. Achilles the Donkey (1962)

Anthologies edited

  1. Six Stories (1965)

Non fiction

  1. Through the Woods (1936)
  2. The Modern Short Story (1940)
  3. In the Heart of the Country (1942)
  4. Country Life (1943)
  5. O More Than Happy Countryman (1943)
  6. The Country of White Clover (1952)
  7. The Vanished World (1969)
  8. Blossoming World (1971)
  9. A Love of Flowers (1971)
  10. World in Ripeness (1972)
  11. Fountain of Flowers (1974)
  12. The Ripening World (1988)
  13. Flying Bombs Over England (1994)
  14. H.E.Bates Autobiography (2006)

Pop Larkin Book Covers

Novels Book Covers

Omnibus Book Covers

Collections Book Covers

Plays Book Covers

Picture Books Book Covers

Anthologies edited Book Covers

Non fiction Book Covers

H E Bates Books Overview

The Darling Buds of May

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.

A Breath of French Air

‘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 …

When the Green Woods Laugh

‘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 …

Oh! to Be in England

‘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 …

A Little of What You Fancy

‘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…

The Two Sisters

Jenny and Tessa, two sisters living with their father in rural England, discover that they are both in love with the same man.

Spella Ho

Forced by his mother to return the coal he stole from an abandoned country estate, Bruno Shadbolt finds his outlook on life changed by the old mansion.

The Scarlet Sword

In Kashmir, a small expatriate community seek shelter from the fighting in a Catholic mission. But the tribesmen who sweep down from the hills are bent on rape and massacre. And the mission is in their path. For ten days, the inhabitants suffer occupation, before finally being liberated by the British Army. But even when surrounded by chaos and senseless destruction they still manage to find hope in God, in action, in each other.

The Purple Plain

A wartime novel set in the central plain of Burma towards the end of the Second World War, where a depleted RAF squadron of Mosquitoes is based.

Feast of July

Now the basis for a major motion picture from the producers of Howard’s End and The Remains of the Day a brooding, suspenseful novel of sensuality and vengenance, set amid the fields and villages of 19th century England. Bella Ford, jilted by her unscrupulous lover, plans revenge that ends in a catastrophic act of violence. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Fair Stood the Wind for France

Treacherous mud clutched at the wheels and the Wellington up ended. End of mission. The great bomber had been giving the crew trouble since leaving Italy. Finally over occupied France, it settles like a weary, wounded edge on what seemed to Franklin a hard, smooth field. The five members of the crew, already closely bound together that even conversation was seldom necessary, were welded by the crash into a single whole, one tiny forged weapon in the vast territory of the enemy weak and ineffectual yet confident as only men can be whose minds are free.

The Four Beauties

Four evocative short stories by a master storyteller.

The Flying Goat

This is a collection of short stories from the author of the TV series, ‘The Darling Buds of May’. The title story is a light hearted comedy of Uncle Silas sketches. Also included are ‘The Ox’, which handles the tragedy of an inexperienced woman, and ‘I Am Not Myself’.

The Nature of Love

Three romantic novellas by a master of English literature.

Through the Woods

H.E. Bates’s evocation of a year in the life of an English woodland has been reprinted to make a suitable gift for gardeners and nature lovers. Bates has an eye for every detail describing the sights and sounds of the countryside and the endless variety of plants and animals as each emerges in turn with the changing seasons. The text is complemented by Agnes Miller Parker’s wood engravings, from full page evocations of a fox stalking its prey to tail pieces showing a bunch of catkins or an owl against the night sky. H.E. Bates is the author of ‘The Darling Buds of May’. Agnes Miller Parker is the illustrator of ‘Down the River’ and ‘The House and the Apricot’.

In the Heart of the Country

The author of The Darling Buds of May writes about living in the English countryside between the wars. Biography.

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