How Sleep the Brave: Complete Stories of Flying Officer 'X'

(Paperback)

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Description

First published under the pseudonym of Flying Officer X, H. E. Bates's heroic stories of the exploits of British pilots during the Second World War created a sensation when they appeared in 1942, selling over two million copies all over the world. While writing these stories, Bates lived among the often painfully young bomber crews and recorded their lives both in combat and on the ground, with a poignancy that deeply moved the generation that lived through the war. The tales, in this one-volume edition, are immensely readable as an account of the R.A.F. in war time, reflecting Bates's mastery both of the art of description and of storytelling.

Reviews

These stories, wry, often poignant, still move the reader today * The Times *
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
One of the most vividly evocative writers of English ... able to conjure up in a handful of words whole landscapes and moods * Listener *
H.E. Bates could achieve a quality of lyrical intensity that few contemporary novelists can match * Times Literary Supplement *
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 * The Times *

Author Bio

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.