Death of a Huntsman

London: Michael Joseph, 1957;
Boston: Little, Brown and Company (an Atlantic Monthly Press Book), 1957.

Appearing in Britain with the title Death of a Huntsman and in the United States with the title Summer in Salander, this was Bates's second collection of novellas (following The Nature of Love in 1953).

The Times says "Mr. H.E. Bates returns to his best form" and the Times Literary Supplement similarly refers to two of the stories as showing "Mr Bates at his best...Of all the various fictional forms the one which most seems to suit him is the conte, the long-short-story or short novel...it gives him enough space to develop the poetic, and generally pastoral, atmosphere on which much of the effect of his writing dependings, and yet not enough to become monotonous without the change of tune or of tone which a longer work demands."

Reviews:

• Books and Bookmen (June 1957, p. 31, Phoebe Ashburner, attached)
• Saturday Review of Literature (October 12, 1957, p. 26, William Peden, attached)
• Spectator (May 24, 1957, p. 684, Geoffrey Nicholson, attached)
• Times (April 4, 1957, p. 13, attached)
• Times Literary Supplement (April 19, 1957, p. 237, David Tydlen-Wright)
• Punch (April 17, 1957, p. 517, attached)
• Daily Telegraph (April 12, 1957, p. 12, Stevie Smith, attached)
• Sunday Times (March 31, 1957, p. 9, John Metcalf, attached)
• Illustrated London News (June 8, 1957, p. 960, K. John, attached)

Contains: Death of a Huntsman; Night Run to the West; Summer in Salander; The Queen of Spain Fritillary. ebook edition (Bloomsbury, 2016) also contains Victim of Silence.