H. E. Bates was one of the most prolific English writers of his generation. From 1926 to 1972 he published, on average, more than one book of fiction a year as well as many nonfiction and juvenile works. He is best known for the power of his descriptions of nature--he had had an early ambition to be a painter, and he was an avid gardener for most of his life--and his ability to use such descriptions to create mood and to reinforce characterization. His real forte was short fiction; his novels tended to receive either critical or popular acclaim, but rarely both. In his later years critical praise for his work waned, but his popular success reached its height in the last two decades of his career. Widely anthologized, Bates was praised by Graham Greene for his poetic sensibility and lyrical renderings of nature and by Henry Miller for...