The Golden Oriole: Five Novellas

London: Michael Joseph, 1962;
Boston, Toronto: Little, Brown and Company,( an Atlantic Monthly Press Book), 1962.

Two comic stories contrast sharply with the atmospheric title story, a complex psychological tale ("The Ring of Truth") and the bleak "The Quiet Girl."

The Times Literary Supplement says 'Mr. Bates for once sadly disappoints. Not one of these five novellas will stand up to close scrutiny.' Paul Engle, in the Saturday Review of Literature, writes that the stories 'have an accurate feeling for the cussed human race and a cool concern for pettiness, folly, and moral weakness, a subdued recognition of the desperate needs that excite apparently calm lives.'

Reviews:

• New Statesman (May 25, 1962, p. 765, Richard Mayne, attached)
• Saturday Review of Literature (December 29, 1962, Paul Engle, attached)
• Times Literary Supplement (May 25, 1962, p. 377, David Williams, attached)
• Sunday Telegraph (May 20, 1962, p. 7, Anthony Quinton, attached)
• Sunday Times (May 6, 1962, p. 32, John Pearson, attached)

Contents: The Ring of Truth, The Quiet Girl, The Golden Oriole, Mr Featherstone Takes a Ride, The World is Too Much With Us. ebook edition (Bloomsbury, 2016) also contains Mademoiselle.