'The Black Boxer'

A portrait, near novella length, of an aging boxer and the social world of carnival workers.

Having beaten a fighter twenty years his junior with a foul cut below the belt, he is left 'tired and stupefied and ashamed.'

In his preface to a 1938 collection of his stories, Country Tales, Bates would single out this tale, along with 'Charlotte Esmond', as accomplishing his difficult transition from a focus on mood to a focus on character and thereby projecting him 'into a new world.'

An undated manuscript is held in the collection of the Lilly Library, Indiana University, USA. (https://archives.iu.edu/catalog/InU-Li-VAD6063)

In Everyman (December 3, 10, 17, 1931), The Black Boxer Tales (1932), Country Tales (1938), Country Tales (1940), The Bride Comes to Evensford and Other Tales (1949). Reprinted in Argosy (November 1936).