H.E. Bates Companion

London: Michael Joseph, 1961 (April); Boston, Toronto: Little, Brown and Company (An Atlantic Monthly Press Book), 1961 (with title The Enchantress and Other Stories).

This collection of twelve stories was generally liked by reviewers, with the Times saying "no praise could be too high for his power to visualize and describe a landscape, a street, the weather, a wild-flower, the sea, and a great many other things; his prose coruscates with exactly realized and defined visual sensations...his powers of observation and compression, his wry humour and his occasionally disturbing pathos are all once more exemplified." The Spectator says that "allowing that he deals in easy sentiment and that he enlarges the cliche to a story while avoiding it in a phrase, it must be said that his tales give considerable pleasure, arising from swiftness, neatness, freshness, and a sensual way of catching at [various phrases of speech]."

Reviews:
Books and Bookmen (May 1961, p. 23, Brian Aldiss, attached)
New York Times (October 15, 1961, p. BR44, Nigel Dennis, attached)
Saturday Review of Literature (October 14, 1961, p. 35, Irving H. Buchen, attached)
Spectator (May 19, 1961, p. 728, Geoffrey Grigson, attached)
Times (April 27, 1961, p. 17, attached)
Times Literary Supplement (May 5, 1961, p. 273, David F. Williams, attached)

Contains: The Enchantress, Lost Ball, Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal, The Place Where Shady Lay, The Yellow Crab, Daughters of the Village, Where the Cloud Breaks, Mrs Eglantine, Thelma, The Snow Line, The Spring Hat, An Island Princess.