Sally Go Round the Moon

London: White Owl Press, 1932 (March).

A tale of squalid London life, in which a young man, trapped in a loveless marriage, seeks solace in religion and in his sister-in-law. Included is an appearance of Charles Lahr as Karl, the good-hearted bookseller, as well as the nursery-rhyme inspiring the title (also mentioned in a discussion of street games in The Vanished World, p. 47).

C. Henry Warren, in the Bookman, writes that although Bates 'can portray exquisitely the dawn-quiet emotions of adolescence, and he is an adept at catching in the net of words those brief poignancies that scud like clouds across the landscape of maturity,' in this book 'he seems to be writing out of his depths...he has little opportunity for the exercise of just that lyric power which is his special contribution to the art of the modern short story.'

Reviews:

• Times Literary Supplement (April 7, 1932, p. 253, attached)
• Bookman (April, 1932, p. 49, Henry Warren, attached)

First published in a limited edition and then in The Woman Who Had Imagination and Other Stories (1934), Country Tales (1938), Country Tales (1940). Also printed in New English Short Stories (London: Cape, 1935).