Thirty Tales.

London: Jonathan Cape, 1934 (April 9). Travellers' Library.
Dedication: "To E.E. Kirby."

Bates's first selection of stories contains sixteen of the twenty-five stories in his first collection (Day's End and Other Stories, 1928), six of the eight stories in his second collection (Seven Tales and Alexander, 1929), and eight of the eleven stories in his third collection (The Black Boxer, 1932).

In the introduction (attached), David Garnett writes that the selection of stories was made by Bates himself, and that 'there is no living English writer of whose future work I feel more confident...I do not anticipate great works of astonishing originality, for, to tell the truth, great originality is not the distinguishing feature of any of Bates's work. His great merit is his astonishing sensibility. His subjects are not new, nor are we shown them in an unfamiliar lighting, which can alter the aspect of ordinary things. What he succeeds in doing is to show them more clearly, more delicately and more tenderly than they have ever been shown before.'

Garnett's introduction was reprinted in abridged form in the Jonathan Cape compilation called Then And Now 1921-1935 as was an essay by Graham Greene titled 'The Travellers' Library' (pp. 153-155, attached) in which Greene writes that 'in the tone of its prose, in the sense of a poetic imagination working in a localised area, Thirty Tales, takes its place beside [Joyce's] Dubliners.'

Contains: Alexander, The Mother, Death in Spring, The Holiday, Harvest, Charlotte Esmond, A Flower Piece, The Hessian Prisoner, Fishing, The Baker's Wife, The Child, On the Road, Blossoms, The Flame, Fear, A Comic Actor, The Idiot, The Birthday, The Barber, The Fuel-Gatherers, The Spring Song, The Father, Two Candles, A Love Story, The Schoolmistress, The Mower, The Voyage, Lanko's White Mare, A Tinker's Donkey, A Threshing Day for Esther.