H. E. Bates

eBook, ePUB

The Day of the Tortoise (eBook, ePUB)

Beschreibung

The Day of the Tortoise, a novella published in 1961, is a touching tale of a brief interlude of pleasure in the stale existence of Fred Tomlinson, a man nearing his sixties. A bachelor, Fred shops, cleans, cooks, and otherwise indulges the eccentric demands of his three spinster sisters until a chance meeting with the fun-loving Kitty who, without the sisters' knowledge, begins to disrupt the household's long-established routines. Penniless, heavy-drinking, and pregnant by a married man, Kitty introduces Fred to dance, drink, kisses, and song while lodging in the stable. With Kitty's inevitable departure, will Fred retain some of his newly-discovered capacity for rebelliousness and joy?

Technische Details

• Geräte: eReader
• mit Kopierschutz
• Größe: 6.32MB

Barrierefreiheit

• Text-to-Speech

Autor

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.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury eBooks UK
• Seitenzahl: 96
• Erscheinungstermin: 6. Dezember 2016
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781448215386
• Artikelnr.: 47077573