H.E. Bates Companion

Bates responds to eight letters to the editor in which readers call his "Report on Spain" inaccurate, biased, insular, and arrogant -- one says "the novelist has forfeited any claim he ever had to the position of an impartial, objective reporter. His prejudices are ugly and do him no credit. His arrogance is insufferable." Bates responds that the letters "do not make the slightest difference to what I think or feel on this subject...I hate dictatorships...I hate Spain...If...I see things that other people do not see, I can only conclude that I observe more closely than they do." In Illustrated (August 19, 1950, p. 37).