H.E. Bates Companion

A brother and sister, both in their forties, live together in the country house left to them by their parents. Their lives are uprooted when she falls in love and feels like one of "those happy souls who dwell in yellow meads of asphodel" (from "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day" by Alexander Pope). Included in the collection The Yellow Meads of Asphodel (1976) and also published separately at the identical time in a limited edition to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the publisher (London: Michael Joseph, August 1976).