How Sleep the Brave

Oct 25, 2024 10:32 PM

Author:H.E. Bates

How Sleep the Brave

Heroic and moving accounts of the R.A.F. in war time by the author of Fair Stood the Wind for France and The Darling Buds of May

'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

First published under the pseudonym of Flying Officer X, H. E. Bates’s stories of the heroic exploits of British bomber crews during the Second World War created a sensation when they appeared in 1942, selling over two million copies all over the world. Bates lived among the painfully young pilots and recorded their lives, and those of their loved ones, with an emotional attention that deeply moved the generation that lived through the war, and an intensity that reverberates down the decades.

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

H. E. Bates, in my opinion, is a much finer writer than is commonly realised. His sensitiveness to beauty and to character is astonishing

—— David Garnett

Books don’t make me cry. Fever At Dawn did. Drawing you in with pathos and playful wit, it squeezes the heart with sorrow and leaves it expanded with joy and love.

—— Gabor Maté M.D., author of IN THE REALM OF HUNGRY GHOSTS

Poignant, uplifting, tender, affectionate

—— Daily Express

Tenderly uplifting

—— Good Housekeeping

Absorbing . . . a touching account of a strange courtship

—— The Sydney Morning Herald

Tenderly humorous. Vital and enjoyable

—— The Australian

Deeply moving...there is little in this story of the horrors of Belsen and forced labour on starvation rations, and much of friendship, determined persistence and transcendent love.

—— Otago Daily Times

Will make you like life more when you've finished

—— The Bookseller

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