Clearwater Books

H.E.BATES. The Last Bread. A play in one act. The Labour Publishing Company Ltd, London 1926. First edition of Bates’ first published work, preceding his first novel by several months. 18pp. Cotton-bound card wrappers with several short tears and three or four small areas of loss from edges. Two-inch tear to dedication leaf. A nice bright copy of quite a fragile production. Eads A2. £35

H.E.BATES. Day’s End and Other Stories. Jonathan Cape, London 1928. First edition. 8vo. 286pp. Top edge slightly spotted and binding just a little tender at the half-title. A trace of light partial browning to the free endpapers and to the half-title. A very good copy – particularly crisp internally – housed in the dust wrapper exhibiting some staining to the spine panel, and just a little dust soiling and a trace or two of edgewear. The author’s first full-length collection of short fiction, comprising twenty-five stories, with a printed dedication of George William Lucas, Bates’ maternal grandfather. 1,500 copies were printed. Eads A6. £125

H.E.BATES. Charlotte’s Row. A novel. Jonathan Cape, London 1931. The deluxe issue of the first edition, limited to 107 numbered copies, signed by the author (this being #21). 8vo. 271pp. Quarter niger with marbled paper-covered sides. With a title page decoration by Ray Garnett, and a loose sheet of protective tissue paper to the title page. Top edge gilt. Just a touch of wear to the tips of two corners. The fore- and bottom edge spotted. Some spotting to the colophon, half-title, title page, and to three or four preliminary and concluding leaves. A very good copy housed in the unprinted plain paper dust wrapper, a little toned and soiled with about three inches of loss from the base of the spine panel. The author’s third novel. Eads A11[b]. £255

H.E.BATES. Charlotte's Row. Jonathan Cape, London 1931. First trade edition. Spine faded and a little chipped at head. Cloth very lightly marked in one or two small areas. Rear gutter just a little tender. About a good copy, very crisp and bright internally, with a neat ink-stamped initial to front and rear pastedowns. No dust wrapper. Eads A11. £20

H.E.BATES. Mrs. Esmond's Life. A story. Privately Printed (by E.Lahr, London) 1931. First edition, limited to 300 numbered copies, signed by the author (this being #104). 8vo. Buckram. Top edge gilt. Buckram a little marked and dust soiled. Free endpapers very lightly toned and spotted. Former owner bookplate to the front pastedown, alongside a private library sticker. A nice, bright copy. No dust wrapper called for. A twenty-one page short story, which was originally printed in the periodical The Criterion under the title Charlotte Esmond, and was not subsequently reprinted. Eads A13. £75

H.E.BATES. A German Idyll. With wood engravings by Lynton Lamb. The Golden Cockerel Press, Waltham St. Lawrence 1932. First edition, printed by Robert and Moira Gibbings on handmade paper, and limited to 307 numbered copies signed by the author (this being #154). Tall slim 8vo. 40pp. Crimson morocco-backed boards with decorated paper sides. Top edge gilt. With a frontispiece, title page decorations, and nine delightful wood-engraved header pieces and decorations.  Backstrip ends gently worn. A very good copy, in fine state internally. No dust wrapper called for, but lacking the original unprinted glassine protector. The first appearance in print of this Bates’ story, which was subsequently included in The Woman Who Had Imagination and Other Stories (1934). Eads A16. £200

H.E.BATES. The Fallow Land. A novel. Jonathan Cape, London 1932. First edition. 8vo. 327pp. Edges lightly spotted, and with just a touch of further spotting to the upper margin of the first three or four leaves, and also to a dozen concluding leaves. A very good copy in price-clipped dust wrapper, tanned at the spine panel, very lightly marked and dust soiled, and with a tiny sliver of loss from the head of the spine panel and a second tiny triangular area of loss from the upper edge. A splendidly preserved copy of the author’s fourth novel, of which 2,500 copies were printed. Eads A17. £95

H.E.BATES. The Story Without an End and The Country Doctor. Two stories. The White Owl Press, London 1932. The deluxe issue of the first edition, limited to 130 numbered copies signed by the author (this being #67). Tall 8vo. 51pp. Top edge gilt, others untrimmed. With a splendid woodcut frontispiece credited to ‘N.K.’ which was not included in the standard trade edition, and a second woodcut vignette at the head of the first text leaf. Cloth very lightly marked at one or two extremities, and with a little offsetting from the woodcuts to the adjacent leaves. Free endpapers very lightly toned, and with just a touch of spotting to several preliminary and concluding leaves. A very good copy. No dust wrapper called for. Uncommon. The first printing of these two Bates’ stories; the second story, The Country Doctor, was never reprinted. Eads A18. £175

H.E.BATES. Cut and Come Again. Stories. Jonathan Cape, London 1935. First edition. 8vo. 285pp + viii publisher’s catalogue bound in at rear. Original publisher’s blue and brown flecked white cloth. Some patchy tanning to backstrip, edges and several preliminary leaves spotted and some browning to endpaper margins. Tip-Ex erasure to front endpaper and a small Times book club plate to the rear. Quite a bright copy, lacking the uncommon dust wrapper. Fourteen short stories, seven of which were previously issued in periodicals or limited editions with the other seven appearing in print here for the first time. 2,000 copies were printed. Eads A25. £15

“Mr. Bates is supreme among English short-story writers; and the work of most authors beside his appears shoddy, trivial or emotional”- Graham Greene reviewing this collection in The Spectator. 

H.E.BATES. The Modern Short Story. A Critical Survey. Nelson, London 1941. First edition. 231pp Cloth-backed boards. Extreme edges of boards lightly spotted and discoloured. Endpapers lightly browned. Neat former owner name to front pastedown. Quite a bright copy in dusty and tanned dust wrapper, a little rubbed at extremities and internally reinforced. Eads A40. £20 

H.E.BATES. The Modern Short Story. A Critical Survey. Nelson, London 1941. First edition. 8vo. Cloth-backed boards, somewhat dusty and faded and just a little sprung. No jacket. Eads A40. £10 

H.E.BATES. The Bride Comes to Evensford. Jonathan Cape, London 1943. First edition. Slim 8vo. 60pp. A tiny sliver of discolouration to cloth at spine ends where the dust wrapper is fractionally defective. A very good copy in Hans Tisdall-designed dust wrapper, a little chafed and dusty with a single short closed tear and a fraction of loss to spine ends and one or two other extremities. Contemporary former owner name inked to front endpaper, alongside a set of inked initials. 3,000 copies were printed. The first printing of this Bates story, not to be confused with the collection of the same name published six years later. Eads A44. £50

H.E.BATES. Derriere les Communiques. Cape, Londres 1944. 8vo. Card wrappers, a little creased and rubbed at overlapping edges. The Greatest People in the World in a French translation, here published for the first time under his own name, rather than his 'Flying Officer X' pseudonym. Published in London, probably for French circulation. £35

H.E.BATES (Published anonymously). There's Freedom in the Air. The Official Story of the Allied Air Forces from the Occupied Countries. H.M.S.O., Londonn 1944. First edition. 8vo. 35pp. Illustrated with photographs. Stapled pictorial wrappers, the staples rusted, and the wrappers fractionally dust soiled, and with a little chafing to the natural fold. A very good copy. Prepared by Bates whilst he was serving at the Directorate of Public Relations at the Air Ministry. Eads A49. £10

H.E.BATES contributes Give them their Life (the first appearance in print of this fourteen-line poem) to the anthology Air Force Poetry. Edited by John Pudney and Henry Treece. Joan Lane, The Bodley Head, London 1944. First edition. 8vo. 90pp.  Some discolouration to the board extremities where the dust wrapper is defective, but thereafter a nice crisp copy, albeit printed on slightly substandard wartime economy paperstock, in torn, creased and marked dust wrapper with several tiny portions of edge-loss. A brief foreword by the editors precedes a selection of eighty-four poems contributed by thirty-three serving RAF and FAA poets including Vernon Watkins, John Bayliss, Geoffrey Parsons, and the editors. Eads D16. £10

H.E.BATES. The Day of Glory. A play. Michael Joseph, Lonson 1945. First edition. 8vo. 78pp. Covers a little marked in places with a little spotting to endpapers. Quite a bright copy, albeit printed on cheap wartime paperstock. No jacket. The author’s only significant play, an RAF story that was produced in Salisbury in October 1945, broadcast by the BBC and later toured by the Arts Council.  Eads A54. £10

H.E.BATES contributes his short novel The Cruise of the Breadwinner to an issue of the periodical The Cornhill No. 967, April 1946. Card wrappers, a little dust marked. This appearance of Breadwinner precedes the book publication by three months, although its very first outing was one month earlier in The Saturday Evening Post. Bates' novel occupies the first 38 pages of this issue. eads B182.2. £15

H.E.BATES. The Country of White Clover. With drawings by Broom Lynne. Michael Joseph, London 1952. First edition. 8vo. 190pp. With endpaper drawings, title page and contents page decorations and 23 chapter header and tail drawings by Broom Lynne. Free endpapers and two or three preliminary leaves fractionally spotted, and with a contemporary former owner name and date inked to the base of the front pastedown. Very good indeed in double-spread pictorial dust wrapper, lightly rubbed and nicked at several extremities. Eads A74. £20

H.E.BATES. Pastoral on Paper. With photographs by John Gay, and maps and drawings by Leslie S.Haywood. The Medway Corrugated Paper Company Ltd., Maidstone [1953]. First edition. 4to. Unpaginated [92pp]. Green cloth with bevelled edges, lettered in gold at the spine and upper board and with the publisher’s green top-edge stain. With colour endpaper maps, four decorations, and thirty-three full-page or double-spread photographic plates. A trace of light chafing to several cloth margins, and a touch of wear to two corner tips. A very good copy in dust wrapper with several short internally-repaired edge-tears and a little accompanying creasing. A thirteen-page essay by Bates about the Medway Corrugated Paper Company, his second commercial commission. Eads A78. £30

H.E.BATES. The Nature of Love. Three short novels. Michael Joseph, London 1953. First edition. 8vo. 240pp. A little browning and spotting to endpapers. Quite a bright copy in dusty, nicked, chipped and internally repaired dust wrapper with two or three fairly small areas of loss. Three novellas, two of which had been previously printed in periodicals (The Grass God in a 1951 Cornhill Magazine supplement and The Delicate Nature in a July 1952 issue of Argosy), with the first, Dulcima, appearing in print here for the first time. Eads A79. £10

H.E.BATES. The Sleepless Moon. A novel. Michael Joseph, London 1956. First edition. 8vo. 383pp. A small area of staining to the top edge and a strip of browning to endpapers. A very good copy in dust wrapper, just fractionally soiled, chafed and spotted. Eads A82. £20

H.E.BATES. The Vanished World. Autobiography. With illustrations by John Ward. Michael Joseph, London 1969. First edition. 8vo. 189pp. With endpaper decorations and various full-page drawings and further drawings in the text. A virtually fine copy in very good pictorial dust wrapper, with some fading to the publisher’s red spine panel lettering, as is so often the case. The first of Bates’ three volumes of memoirs. £15

H.E.BATES. A Love of Flowers. With illustrations by Pauline Ellison. Michael Joseph, London 1971. First edition of Bates’ “very personal gardening book”. 8vo. 160pp. A single inked correction to a typo in the author’s preface, else a fine copy in price-clipped and slightly chafed and dust marked dust wrapper. Former owner bookplate to front pastedown. Eads A112. £5

H.E.BATES. The Song of the Wren. Michael Joseph, London 1972. First edition. 8vo. 168pp. Some spotting to top edge and upper board lifting a fraction. A very good copy in pictorial dust wrapper, very lightly faded at spine panel. eads A113. £10

H.E.BATES. Give Them Their Life. The Poetry of H.E.Bates. Edited, with an introduction by Peter Eads, a foreword by Richard Bates and calligraphy and illustrations by Lynne Evans. Evensford, London 1990. First edition, one of a special limited edition of 1000 numbered copies, signed by all three contributors (this being #511). This copy with an additional presentation inscription by Peter Eads. Landscape 4to. 72pp. In fine state with dust wrapper, with several tiny edge-tears and a little chafing to the natural folds. Nineteen poems including four composed for Christmas cards, plus a brief prose piece on John Clare and the text of Bates’ four-page review of The Poems of John Clare. £35

H.E.BATES. Flying Bombs Over England. Edited by Bob Ogley. Froglets Publications, Westerham 1994. First edition. 4to. 160pp. Illustrated with photographs, reproductions, maps and plans, including a few in colour. Top edge fractionally spotted, and with a hint of marking to the boards in one or two places. A virtually fine copy in dust wrapper, lightly faded at the spine panel and with a little wear to the upper edge. A 30,000 word Bates story about the V1 and V2 flying bombs, originally conceived as a 5,000 word pamphlet, written in circa 1945 at the behest of the Air Ministry, but subsequently suppressed and hitherto unpublished. £15