Career
He discarded his first novel, written when he was in his late teens, but his second, and the first one to be published, The Two Sisters, was inspired by one of his midnight walks, which took him to the small village of Farndish. There, late at night, he saw a light burning in a cottage window and it was this that triggered the story. At this time he was working briefly for the local newspaper in Wellingborough, a job which he hated, and then later at a local shoe-making warehouse, where he had time to write; in fact the whole of this first novel was written there. This was sent to, and rejected by, nine publishers, until the tenth, Jonathan Cape accepted it on the advice of its highly respected Reader, Edward Garnett. He was then twenty years old.
More novels, collections of short stories, essays, and articles followed, but did not pay well.
Read more about this topic: H. E. Bates
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