I. Sudden spring -- II. Fisherman’s luck -- III. Overture to summer -- IV. Fruit blossom time -- V. “Clouded August thorn” -- VI. Strange battlefields -- VII. The great snow -- VIII. A summer spring -- IX. “ … Bring forth May flowers” -- X. Victorian Garden -- XI. Wealden beauty -- XII. The strangeness of fish -- XIII. The parish pump -- XIV. Flowers and Downland
Summary Note
“The Heart of the Country is not a country war-book; it is not a book of country escape; it is not a book with a purpose. It describes something of what the Southern English countryside was like during the first two winters and two summers of war; how little its beauty was changed; how much more poignant indeed much of its beauty became, and how the war of the air, with its silver flights of planes and delicate sky-patterns, provided a new beauty that no age but our own had ever seen.
This beauty, together with the beauty of seasonal change, of waterside and woodland, field and hillside, of birds and fish, flowers and crops, is described by H. E. Bates with the delicacy the objectivity and warm colour for which his work on country life is well known. There is no sentimentalising of the country here; no false values. The standards are those of Hudson and Edward Thomas. The beauty of the work is living, warm with deep affection, firm on the bones of reality. [dust-jacket].
Provenance
Inscribed in blue ink on front free endpaper: Wishing you many Happy Returns of the Day and lots of Good Luck. Love Mary. May 10th 1942.
Subject
Natural history — Great Britain
Country life — Great Britain — History — 20th century