An attractively produced anthology of the writing of H E Bates , novels, memoirs, short stories and essays dating from the late 1920s to 1976. It is attractively illustrated by Llewellyn Thomas . The extracts ( all fairly short) are arranged around the the theme of the four seasons. The title of the book the Darling Buds of May confuses as this was the title of one of Bates' best known books , published in 1958, with the memorable Larkin family He was a very popular English author ( his dates 1905 to 1974) and wrote well about the ordinary lives of ordinary people in the rural country side but it was very much an imagined world. He was a humorous writer and you are either a fan or consider the writing very light weight. I adored his novel Fair Stood the Wind for France. The book lacks an introduction or even a complete list of Bates' writing. ther's no assessment of the place of Bates in English writing . It makes for a pleasant taste of the essence of Bates in his own words, but look elsewhere if you want to know about Bates and his works ( )