Love for Lydia - Hardcover

Bates, H. E.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 071811521X ISBN 13: 9780718115210

Publisher: Michael Joseph Ltd, 1976

Synopsis

Love for Lydia was the first novel with an English setting that H.E. Bates wrote after the second world war, and it was his own favourite among his Northamptonshire novels. The Northants setting becomes the background both ugly and beautiful for the story of a young girl, the daughter of a decaying aristocratic household, and her lovers, of which the most important is the narrator himself.

Published in 1952, it is essentially an autobiographical novel, and, though much of his fiction reflects his own life and background, this probably contains more than in any other piece of fiction – That may explain why it is such a satisfying book. Bates spent a brief time as a reporter on the Northamptonshire Chronicle, and there are other echoes of the author’s personal experiences here in the character of the narrator, Richardson. Lydia, it seems, is based on, or was inspired by, a young lady he once glimpsed on Rushden railway station – "a tallish, dark, proud, aloof young girl in a black cloak lined with scarlet". Lydia in the story is the sheltered and selfish Aspen daughter, and the novel chronicles her affairs with Richardson and two of the other young men. It has been described as a novel of "a young man's struggle to understand and resolve himself to a formidable world of change and uncertainty”, and the novel ends in his committing himself to Lydia in a much more mature and lasting way than he could have done at the beginning of the story. The novel was serialised on television in 1976.

About this title

About the Author

H. E. Bates was educated at Kettering Grammar School. He worked as a journalist and clerk on a local newspaper before publishing his first book, after which he quickly acquired a reputation for his stories about English country life. During World War II, he was a squadron leader in the RAF and was commissioned to write stories about service life, which he published under the pseudonym of "Flying Officer X." In 1958 the Larkin family appeared for the first time in The Darling Buds of May, the first of the enduringly popular Larkin family novels. H. E. Bates was awarded the CBE in 1973 and died in 1974.

Review

"'One of the most vividly evocative writers of English... able to conjure up in a handful of words whole landscapes and moods' Listener 'Drawn with simple, often touching force.' Guardian 'H. E. Bates can achieve a quality of lyrical intensity that few contemporary novelists can match' Times Literary Supplement"

Edition details

• Publisher: Michael Joseph Ltd
• Publication date: 1976
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 071811521X
• ISBN 13: 9780718115210
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224