The Four Beauties

London: Michael Joseph, 1968.

Bates's last collection of novellas contains a slight comic piece, an action-packed South Seas adventure, a semi-autobiographical remembrance of a young reporter and his loves, and an exploration of a dark love triangle. The collection was a volume in the boxset Country and Other Matters. (1973).

Julian Symons, in The Sunday Times, praises Bates's 'characteristic skill in understatement' and of one of the stories says 'the effect is precisely calculated, delicately achieved.' David Spiller in Books and Bookmen calls the title story 'a charming and effortless tale, brought to its conclusion by a beautiful coda.'

Reviews:

• Books and Bookmen (April 1968, p. 30, David Spiller, attached)
• Spectator (March 8, 1968, p. 299, Martin Seymour-Smith, attached)
• Times (March 16, 1968, p. 22, Judith Frankel, attached)
• Times Literary Supplement (April 4, 1968, p. 333, D.A.N. Jones, attached)
• British Book News (June, 1968, p. 474, attached)
• Punch (March 13, 1968, p. 400, attached)
• Sunday Times (March 3, 1968, p. 27, Julian Symons, attached)

Contains: The Simple Life; The Four Beauties; The Chords of Youth; The White Wind.