- Paperback: 144 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New impression edition (26 Oct 1972)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140024778
- ISBN-13: 978-0140024777
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 14 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,298,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Oh! to be in England
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
A novel by the author of "The Darling Buds of May", "The Beauty of the Dead", "The Fallow Land", "The Vanished World" and "Love for Lydia".
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
H. E. Bates was born in 1905 in Northamptonshire. He worked as a journalist and clerk on a local newspaper before publishing his first book, The Two Sisters, when he was twenty. In the next fifteen years he acquired a distinguished reputation for his stories about English country life. During the Second World War he was a Squadron Leader in the R.A.F. The Darling Buds of May, the first of the popular Larkin family novels, was followed by A Breath of French Air (1959), When the Green Woods Laugh (1960), Oh! To Be in England (1963). His works have been translated into sixteen languages. H. E. Bates was awarded the C.B.E. in 1973 and died in January 1974.
--This text refers to an alternate
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First Sentence
As Pop Larkin loaded the last pieces of junk into his newly painted yellow-and-scarlet pick-up all the essence of the fine June morning seemed to pour down like dreamy honey from thick boughs of oak-flower, gold-green against a sky of purest blue, unblemished except for a few floating white doves of cloud. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
As Pop Larkin loaded the last pieces of junk into his newly painted yellow-and-scarlet pick-up all the essence of the fine June morning seemed to pour down like dreamy honey from thick boughs of oak-flower, gold-green against a sky of purest blue, unblemished except for a few floating white doves of cloud. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio Cassette
This is the last of the Larkin Chronicles and has a real sense of poignancy about it. In a more gentle way it reminds me of Hardy's mourning for the end of an era in his Wessex novels. Here Pop has to deal with an influx of Teddy boys who want to ruin the farm. Although victorious you feel that he knows that it is only a temporary measure and the golden days of summer cannot last forever. A sensitive and gently funny book about the end of a dream.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Bates uses his fantastic language in this fourth novel about Pop Larkin and his eccentric family in the Kentish countryside. It has it's funny moments thanks to his extraordinary word choices and descriptions of things. But unfortunately the storyline in this fourth book is much weaker than the previous ones.
It's a sentimental ode to an England that is disappearing. In a way the book resembles his short story collections more than a novel since he this time does not have a real thread throughout the book and seems to have had lots of different ideas for it. It starts with a story on how Pop decides on humiliating an arrogant Captain. But that story has nothing to do with the rest of the book. Then there is violence in form of modern youths deciding to pick on old-fashioned villagers and customs. One does not want things to really go THAT dark in a Pop Larkin novel where everything is always so wild, funny and cozy. What the book mostly is about though is the christening of Pop's youngest son, Oscar who has turned 3 years old and that of his two month old grandson, Blenheim. All the Larkin children decide to get christened at the same time as "the babies" and a character from book two, Mademoiselle Dupont, shows up in this novel as a godmother. But Bates does not really follow up on her character that well. He concentrates more on the fact that Ma has started to paint nudes, especially of daughter Mariette who has just become a mother, and he also deals a lot with the fact that the now 14-year old Primrose Larkin, tries to seduce the interim priest in the parish.
Can I recommend the book? Yes, because I think that the fifth and final novel will much build on this one and that is how I felt when I read this book: It's a book one must get through to understand and enjoy the next one.
It's a sentimental ode to an England that is disappearing. In a way the book resembles his short story collections more than a novel since he this time does not have a real thread throughout the book and seems to have had lots of different ideas for it. It starts with a story on how Pop decides on humiliating an arrogant Captain. But that story has nothing to do with the rest of the book. Then there is violence in form of modern youths deciding to pick on old-fashioned villagers and customs. One does not want things to really go THAT dark in a Pop Larkin novel where everything is always so wild, funny and cozy. What the book mostly is about though is the christening of Pop's youngest son, Oscar who has turned 3 years old and that of his two month old grandson, Blenheim. All the Larkin children decide to get christened at the same time as "the babies" and a character from book two, Mademoiselle Dupont, shows up in this novel as a godmother. But Bates does not really follow up on her character that well. He concentrates more on the fact that Ma has started to paint nudes, especially of daughter Mariette who has just become a mother, and he also deals a lot with the fact that the now 14-year old Primrose Larkin, tries to seduce the interim priest in the parish.
Can I recommend the book? Yes, because I think that the fifth and final novel will much build on this one and that is how I felt when I read this book: It's a book one must get through to understand and enjoy the next one.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
An uninterrupted rural riot in the Garden on England, with Larkins as ring leaders.
Here's Pop clinching a deal for two suits of armour, a butter churn, three Regency chamber pots (with pink roses on them) and a load of other junk; and here are all the
younger Larkins being taken into the bosom of the Church at a mass baptism (with marquee and private fairground); and here's the Rev Candy locking a half-nelson on an unwelcome visitor.
Oh! definitely, TO BE IN ENGLAND with the Moon-Rockets and the pink champagne. It's as perfect as A BREATH OF FRENCH AIR or WHEN THE GREEN WOODS LAUGH, as perfect as THE DARLING BUDS OF MAY
Here's Pop clinching a deal for two suits of armour, a butter churn, three Regency chamber pots (with pink roses on them) and a load of other junk; and here are all the
younger Larkins being taken into the bosom of the Church at a mass baptism (with marquee and private fairground); and here's the Rev Candy locking a half-nelson on an unwelcome visitor.
Oh! definitely, TO BE IN ENGLAND with the Moon-Rockets and the pink champagne. It's as perfect as A BREATH OF FRENCH AIR or WHEN THE GREEN WOODS LAUGH, as perfect as THE DARLING BUDS OF MAY
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
H. E. Bates
A great book easy to read would recomend it a follow on from the Darling Buds of May or one of
Published 2 months ago by trish
Oh! To Be In England
If you enjoy watching Darling Buds of May, then have a read of the books. They are brilliant. The books are as funny and as good as the series. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Mrs. Jennifer A. Slack
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