The feast of July

by H.E. Bates

A fine novel which Bates published in the early 1950s, The Feast of July is set in the 1880s in the fictional world of Evensford and its surrounding area (familiar to all Bates followers). Bella Ford, aged 19 and a girl of generous and determined character, having been seduced by an older and married man, Arch Wilson, goes in search of him and eventually finds him with tragic circumstances. In the meantime she is befriended and given a home by a family of shoemakers, the Wainwrights, who help her restore her faith in living. Through them, and especially the three Wainwright sons, she rediscovers beauty, fulfillment, love and great happiness...until a crisis of extreme tragedy puts her to the highest test. One critic “The story is reminiscent of Thomas Hardy…the naive girl made pregnant by the slick villain, the rural setting and seasonal rhythms, the inevitable violence, the flight with the lover and his eventual capture--all are variations on Tess of the d'Urbervilles." The title, The Feast of July, derives from the July 'Sunday of Fifty Feasts', celebrated all over the Midlands. These feasts were once religious in character, but they became annual pleasure fairs, and up to the end of the 19th century they were robust and very colourful.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Novels, Literary Fiction, Classics, British Literature, 20th Century

Paperback

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

Herbert Ernest Bates, CBE is widely recognised as one of the finest short story writers of his generation, with more than 20 story collections published in his lifetime. It should not be overlooked, however, that he also wrote some outstanding novels, starting with The Two Sisters through to A Moment in Time, with such works as Love For Lydia, Fair Stood the Wind for France and The Scarlet Sword earning high praise from the critics. His study of the Modern Short Story is considered one of the best ever written on the subject.

He was born in Rushden, Northamptonshire and was educated at Kettering Grammar School. After leaving school, he was briefly a newspaper reporter and a warehouse clerk, but his heart was always in writing and his dream to be able to make a living by his pen.

Many of his stories depict life in the rural Midlands of England, particularly his native Northamptonshire. Bates was partial to taking long midnight walks around the Northamptonshire countryside - and this often provided the inspiration for his stories. Bates was a great lover of the countryside and its people and this is exemplified in two volumes of essays entitled Through the Woods and Down the River.

In 1931, he married Madge Cox, his sweetheart from the next road in his native Rushden. They moved to the village of Little Chart in Kent and bought an old granary and this together with an acre of garden they converted into a home. It was in this phase of his life that he found the inspiration for the Larkins series of novels -The Darling Buds of May, A Breath of French Air, When the Green Woods Laugh, etc. - and the Uncle Silas tales. Not surprisingly, these highly successful novels inspired television series that were immensely popular.

His collection of stories written while serving in the RAF during World War II, best known by the title The Stories of Flying Officer X, but previously published as Something in the Air (a compilation of his two wartime collections under the pseudonym 'Flying Officer X' and titled The Greatest People in the World and How Sleep the Brave), deserve particular attention. By the end of the war he had achieved the rank of Squadron Leader.

Bates was influenced by Chekhov in particular, and his knowledge of the history of the short story is obvious from the famous study he produced on the subject. He also wrote his autobiography in three volumes (each delightfully illustrated) which were subsequently published in a one-volume Autobiography.

Bates was a keen and knowledgeable gardener and wrote numerous books on flowers. The Granary remained their home for the whole of their married life. After the death of H. E Bates, Madge moved to a bungalow, which had originally been a cow byre, next to the Granary. She died in 2004 at age 95. They raised two sons and two daughters.

primarily from Wikipedia, with additions by Keith Farnsworth

Reviews

[Kerri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admit I bought this because I found the cover to be very striking, but the actual story was very rewarding and I am pleased I came across this in a second hand store recently.

Reviews mention that it is set in the 1800's, something I didn't realise - I don't recall the book ever actually stating that. What I assumed to be kind of quaintness was probably in fact my cues as to the era! Well, I know that now, which does clear up a few moments that had felt especially old-fashioned.

With the books title, I had intended to finish it in July, but never mind! It follows a young girl named Bella, who is seduced by an older man and becomes pregnant. He of course never returns for her, despite his promise. So she journeys to the place he told her he was from(another lie on his part), losing the baby during the journey. She is taken in by a family of shoemakers, and the three sons all fall in love with her.

In many ways this was a peaceful book to read, but as I thought back over plot I see that a great deal happened. There's a lull in the middle, where things are quiet and then incredibly bleak as there is no work available and the family spends the winter living a miserable existence.

The final section was surprisingly action packed, sad but not without hope.

I initially had thought I would give this three stars, but I now find that I am more invested in it than I had realised. I found Bella to be quite a fascinating character. There is a movie version of this that I would like to watch. I saw the trailer on YouTube, and it looked promising.

[CanadianReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

“She was looking for a man named Arch Wilson and she was walking south-westward, alone, towards the middle of the country, with another fifty or sixty miles to go.”

So opens H. E. Bates’s Hardyesque novel, set in a nineteenth-century shoemaking village in the rural Midlands. A young woman, the simple and pretty Bella Ford, a chamber maid at a seaside hotel, is hoodwinked by the gifts and promises of one of the summer guests and falls pregnant. During an arduous journey in stormy weather, she miscarries and vows to kill the caddish Wilson for ruining her. Once she reaches Nenweald, the place he’d identified as home, he’s nowhere to be found. No one knows of him. Ben Wainwright, the town lamplighter, a former drunk who’s found religion, takes pity on Bella. He brings her home to his family, which conveniently includes three sons (Con, Jedd, and Matty) and their sister, Nell—all around Bella’s age. What follows is a tale of three young men more or less vying for Bella’s affection. A sense of inevitability—fatalism—prevails, a must in a novel after Hardy. One cannot alter what the gods have ordained. While there is some tension in the matter of whom Bella will settle on, the reader knows it’s not going to end well, especially with a character like Con, the intense and impulsive eldest Wainwright son, who can’t be stopped once set on a course.

There are some lovely descriptions of the natural world in the novel, and Bates’s depiction of Bella’s “reawakening” after trauma is sensitively rendered. However, the reader is also required to suspend disbelief. Winters are bleak in this village. There’s little employment to come by, and the Wainwrights live hand to mouth during the darkest months of the year. It’s hard to credit they’d willingly keep on a stranger—especially one who contributes little or nothing. They can barely make do as it is, and there’s the additional (perennial) problem of Wainwright Senior’s going on a sudden “blinder”—as Bates puts it. Bella is not a particularly interesting character. Aside from the opening and closing of the novel, she’s a passive young woman, demonstrating little agency. Her affections bend towards whichever Wainwright son happens to be closest at any given moment. Bella experiences no internal conflict as to whom she should choose, and for large sections of the book, her early statement of intent about Arch Wilson appears to be forgotten.

I liked the book well enough, but in spite of the many elements reminiscent of Thomas Hardy’s later novels, the central character with her scant backstory and shallow interior life is not enough to compel.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This certainly is not the world of Pop Larkin; this is a much different, bleaker England of the late nineteenth century. It is set in the Midlands (July feasts were a tradition in Midlands towns and cities)in the fictional area of Evensford. The heroine is called Bella (thankfully no vampires or werewolves here) and she is seduced by a more experienced man whilst she is working in a hotel/bar. She is pregnant and abandoned and goes in search of her seducer. It is winter and attempts to walk to the town she thinks he comes from. On the journey she loses the baby and almost dies. She is taken in by the Wainwright family who nurse her back to health. Each of their three sons, Jed, Con and Matty fall in love with her and she with each of them; in different ways. She seems to have picked Con, but the feast of July comes round and her seducer reappears with calamitous consequences. The ending is very ambiguous and it isn't clear exactly what has happened.
Bates tells his story well and his descriptions of the countryside in its seasons are excellent. Also very telling are his descriptions of poverty and brief feast and plenty. The hard winter months when there is little food and little work in the shoemaking industry (central to the wainwright family income). The Wainwrights are on the cusp between town and country and work on the land at the busier times of year. Death and disease are never far away.
Comparisons have been drawn with Hardy and Tess of the D'Urbevilles; although there are no rakish aristocrats. It is more the Hardy of Jude the Obscure and the Woodlanders; however Hardy's endings were always much clearer than this. There are other comparisons the can be made; Faulkner, the dickens of Hard Times and Elizabeth Gaskell possibly. It is also worth noting that the really strong characters are the female ones; Mrs Wainwright and Bella, who are practical, clear-sighted and realistic; although Bella can appear indecisive on the surface. Her inability initially to decide between the brothers is more about her experience and understanding of men. The male characters are easily led, emotional and weak willed.
A good tale, rather bleak, with an open ending (with clues). On the whole my Larkin related reluctance to read this was misplaced.

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

A story set in the late nineteenth century.....about loss, healing, and then finally love.....nurtured within a close knit family living just above the poverty line.

Each of the three sons of the family falls in love with the broken heroine Bella Ford, as she struggles over months to recover from a heartless affair and the loss of her unborn child. Invited into the family by the father, she slowly works her way back to physical and emotional health.

For me most of the book was very harsh. Even the countryside - so beautifully described by Bates - is either being beaten by the savageries of winter, or blistered by a remorseless sun. It is only when Bella recovers enough to love again that the world seems a kinder place.

Not kind enough though. She bumps into the cad who was the start of all her problems, and this results in a tragedy that will change her life.

How? Well I'm not quite sure. In spite of reading the end of the book three times, I still can't work out what happened! Yes, a tragedy occurred, but the aftermath lost me..... it might be a completely tragic ending.....a tragic ending but with hints of hope for the future..... or, everything was not so bad after all.... It may just be because I have a brain the size of a pea, but I truly couldn't work out how the story ended.

I am not awarding the paltry two stars just for a let down at the ending though. I was underwhelmed throughout the book by the level of characterization. There was no-one in the book I felt close to or really cared about. When the tragedy happened towards the end of the book I just felt "humph", rather than any real connection. I just couldn't get into the folk in this book.

I haven't read Bates for many years though, and I remember I read some of his books with delight. I think I need to try one of his other books and see how I get on.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bates's 20th (mainstream) novel, and immediately it strikes you how close the prose style is to Hemingway. Having just finished For Whom The Bell Tolls (1940), the likeness is striking. It is also striking because I've read quite a few of Bates's novels recently, and the colouration he gives his descriptive prose - particularly in his war novels (Fair Stood The Wind For France [1944], The Purple Plain [1948], The Jacaranda Tree [1949], The Scarlet Sword [1950], and A Moment In Time [1964]) and Love For Lydia (1952) - is always evocative of the countryside, the trees, shrubs, woods, spinneys, flowers, of the land and the weather, that are as much the story as plot or character:

Like all the shoemakers he loved the river. He loved the valley and the open country that was an escape from the low shabby defiles of the town. He felt pride in it because he had been born and bred there and because he knew every pike-hole and every place where bream and roach would be feeding and every spinney and bush and bank where wild-duck and snipe and kingfisher would breed. He wanted her to share all this. Already the full surge of summer was rising in the meadow grass, thick-scented, and on the crowns of may-blossom and wild-rose along the big sprawling hedgerows where later herds of returning cattle would pant fly-blown in the August shade. (Penguin, 1986, pp.38-9).

This is classic Bates. This is what his best writing paints. You dwell in Heaven for a brief while. We all remember such summer glory, warm secrets nestled within us, bursting forth each year, part of the hope and peace of life. And I only find it in transitory whispers in other writers, like McEwan, occasionally (On Chesil Beach [2017]), with the exception of Laurie Lee's Cider With Rosie (1959), who must have owed some debt to H.E. Bates, I would have thought.

This is a beautifully written novel which, even for me, a Bates lover, seems so much one of his lesser known works it seems like a marvellous find, some treasure unearthed, or a gem discovered in a forgotten jewelry box. It entirely justifies my persistence in reading him, as though there hadn't been sufficient testimony of those earlier novels. There's a guarantee that you'll fall into his lush landscapes like the welcoming clouds at the end of a hot summer's day, that you'll wander endless paths through meadows and woods and find yourself at a river, its very sound quenching your thirst. That you'll stand lost in the middle of a folded dell or a little winding river valley under the vibrant heat of full summer, cool cuckoo calls falling from the shading spinney, or wander into the blue-black secret heart of a wood, utterly alone, or find yourself strolling down dusty summer lanes under the scent of may and briar rose hedgerows.

No one - with the exception of Lee - conjures the imagery of summer like H.E. Bates.

But he also conjures the atmosphere of a lost past, of communities of shoemakers helping with the harvest, of the gleaning afterwards, of a time of artisans and field labourers, bringing the flavour of Flora Thompson's Lark Rise To Candleford (1945). And within this bedding in the land, the myriad little connections between people in tiny noticed interactions that occur between people almost unconsciously, unacknowledged. The little language of the novel is as affecting as the grand sweeping description. This is a beautifully written novel.

I've now read 20 of his works (12 novels, 2 novellas), and have 36 (18 novels) to look forward to. What a feast!

[Lobstergirl · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think people who liked Winter's Bone would like this. It's a similarly garish, overblown style of writing, accompanied by similar romanticization of the rural poor. Yes, I do see some similarities to Thomas Hardy and D.H. Lawrence. Nature, lust, tragedy... But this was bad enough I really should have done the library a favor and thrown it in a dumpster.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I somehow seem to have accumulated a few H. E. Bates books over the years but this is the first one that I have actually picked up and read. I think that, once I’d realised, I was a bit put off by The Darling Buds of May connection (a judgement actually based on nothing but the ubiquity of the television series when I was growing up). However, instead of getting something whimsical and nostalgic I got something that was rather Hardyesque. There are lyrical and idyllic descriptions of the countryside, a sense of the hardships of the rural working man’s everyday life (in this case shoemakers) and finally the fragility of women’s existence alongside the careless cruelty of men. The only thing missing was the fact that Bates was showing us the social impacts rather than getting embroiled in more obvious moralising like most actual Victorian writers of that ilk. I don’t know how representative this is of his work but I do know that I’ll be looking forward to more of what he has written rather than overlooking it in future.

[Victoria Bassett-Wilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has secured the place of one of my favourites. Aside from the one line about the main character’s breasts being ‘nimble’ (I have many questions about this) every sentence is wrought with beauty, thick with emotion, and the author captures the essence of many human experiences. The utter devastation of grief and betrayal, the warmth of patient love, and the slow rebuilding of oneself could not be more perfectly described. You will feel as though you can smell, see and breathe the seasons. Could go on and on about this book, but this is where I’ll end my review.

[Len · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I was reading through the book I had a feeling that it had been pieced together, very carefully and very professionally, as if Bates had sat down with a sheet of paper and drawn a diagram of his chosen plot and then worked through it sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter, amending and adding then returning to an earlier chapter to alter whatever that amendment made necessary. For me it came across as being too calculated. The characters were only that, literary inventions, and never depictions of believable people.

I hoped the story would be a version of Thomas Hardy brought into the late nineteenth century industrial world but it never quite made it. I was reminded time and again of Richard Jefferies' Amaryllis at the Fair when a bland storyline is interrupted by a nature lover's descriptions of rural England. There is even an element of Charles Dickens when poor Nell has to trudge weary miles through sharp winter weather to find work for the family. Her only food seems to be a raw potato and her worn out clothes are too thin to offer protection. Unsurprisingly she goes on to suffer a death worthy of any Dickensian female waif. The main story of Bella's search for the man who made her pregnant and deserted her – the Thomas Hardy bit - too often drifted away out of sight.

There are some nice touches and some very moving ones. The loss of Bella's child stands out. And the description of Con and Bella walking in the countryside on the day of Nell's funeral is a scene of natural beauty that may never exist in England again:

“It was dry and dusty on the foot-path, cracked from the drought of spring, as they walked south-eastward out of the town. There was a touch or two of full green, brilliant and fresh as parsley, on the crests of hawthorn hedges and a few white stars of blossom on leafless boughs of blackthorn. Everywhere in the spring heat there was a great throbbing of thrush-song and over on the big dry wheat-fields a background of larks that went shrilling higher and higher into the blue March above the tender curves of corn.”

Set against that there are inconsistencies. The Wainwrights are a hard-working family of cordwainers and their work is seasonal. During the winter months life is harsh. Yet when Bella walks into the village, bedraggled, hungry and exhausted, they not only take her in for the night but treat her as a new member of the family. It is as I said before: for the plot to work later Bella had to remain in the village and to have her adopted as a new daughter – and generally not an industrious one - by a family often desperate to survive perhaps seemed the easiest solution.

Too many of the characters are a little hollow. Arch Wilson, Bella's first lover; Jedd Wainwright, the happy-go-lucky soldier son; Mr Wainwright, former alcoholic now religiously inspired, though with lapses. Mrs Wainwright comes across strongly and is the one person capable of seeing that Bella is not all sweetness and light. Con Wainwright comes and goes not unlike his hidden anger and it is difficult to understand what a young woman such as Bella sees in him romantically. And then there is the ending. Bella has left behind a trail of dead, ruined and unhappy men, escaped unscathed, and concludes sitting on a train quietly waiting to go back to her sister's house. One hopes that her sister either doesn't have any brothers or sons or has been tipped off that the femme fatale is on her way.

[Jim Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

H.E.Bates seems a bit old fashioned now. I imagine he probably seemed so even when his books were published (1930’s – 1950’s). His novels often read like something from the Victorian Age with just a little more sex. The writing in this book is top notch--lyrical and full of startling, vibrant images. His ability to reimagine the English countryside of the 19th century is astonishing. His plots though, are a bit predictable and there often seems a repressed resentment toward his female characters. Belle is beautiful but manipulative (whether she recognizes it or not) and ends up nearly destroying a family that has saved her. Her life goes in cycles like the seasons and the holidays (Feast of July is a kind of harvest festival), from brutalizing winters to passionate summers and the cycle never seems to end. There is a Hardy-like resignation that nature controls us and, ultimately, I must say that Hardy does this kind of book better (in other words, read Tess of the D’ubervilles instead).

[Kathryn, the_naptime_reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

I first learned of this book while watching a BBC film, and the movie version of it was being advertised. It seemed like an interesting story, so I read up about it, and saw that it was based a book. I always have to read the book first, so I added it to my list, and forgot about it. The first clue to me that this was just an ok book, should have been the fact that it was really difficult to find a library that actually had it, and I ended up putting in a special request and having it sent from a University library, and they lent me a first edition.

Anywho, the story felt like a common one, fallen girl, taken in, all 3 sons fall in love with her. The characters weren't particularly well-developed or original. The romance felt ubrupt (so did the ending). A much much better story is Far From the Madding Crowd and it has similarities. Totally skippable.

[Julie Dunnett · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sad story of Bella who follows her lover Arch Wilson when she finds she is pregnant. This is set in the late 19th century and has to walk many miles for many days to where she thinks he may be. This is through the dead of winter and she gives birth to a dead baby on the way. She is taken in by the Wainwright family who are so kind to her. But as she recovers the three sons of the house notice her. The different relationships she builds with each brother is fascinating. But the hatred of the first lover comes back to slap Bella in the face. Such a sad tale

[Alan Korolenko · Rating 3 out of 5]

A young woman journeys on foot to find her seducer and, having miscarried on the jpurney and near death, is adopted by a family whose three sons fall in love with her. Tragedy follows. H. E. Bates goes full Thomas Hardy in this dark tale set in the beauty of the 19th century Midlands. If there is a moral to the story, it is to avoid falling in love with the homicidal son.

[Sara SR · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing happens? This reminded me of those newspaper stories that would have a chapter published veery day and would go on for the whole summer. The individual pieces made sense, but when put one after the other, it all seemed very bland and full of repetition.

[David Mather · Rating 5 out of 5]

I chose The Feast of July as just one of twelve books published in 1954 to read during the year I became a Septuagenarian.
I loved the story of romance amidst the hardships of life in the late 1800’s, and the last chapter was simply beautiful.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

Main character a slow learner, not very endearing.

[Sarah F · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark and beautiful.

[Erica-Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thomas Hardy meets E.M. Forster. One of my favourite, little-known novels of this era. Tropes abound, but writing is so concise and lovely that it still works.

[Elaine Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continuing the theme of a book a month with the appropriate month in the title. A pleasant read

[Carmel Vermeltfoort]

This is a total failure as historical fiction. I read 50% and couldn't go on with it.

[Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting, if perhaps somewhat dreary little book that made for a lovely Merchant-Ivory film. Bates' prose is pretty without being poetic, and evokes the grittier side of the British countryside in the late Victorian Age. The characters are engaging and the story moves briskly, with its working-class tragedy relayed in a simple, un-sentimental manner that manages to be evocative without being over-wrought, and this is particularly effective in the characterization of Con, a kind of British Victorian "Lenny". Still, there is an ultimate "why?" factor to the novel, as if the control and restraint shown is not as intentional as hoped, but rather the product of a lack of passion driving the over-all narrative, telling us why Bates has chosen to tell this story. You get the vague impression that, while much has happened, none of it has really mattered beyond the immediate people affected- all of whom lived a long time ago and don't seem to have much to do with the here and now. The result is, you feel like you've just been watching life as it unfolds for a group of unfortunate individuals, and though there is hope at the end, you're still left unsatisfied, as if you never really got to know anyone in the story beyond what was needed to explain their actions, and you never will get to know them. The over all result is a story that intrigues but doesn't really enthrall or entertain.

[Saviour · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another stunning novel from master storyteller H.E. Bates. A young woman sets off in search of a lad who's let her pregnant. Journeying across the Midlands in Britain, she loses the child and is taken in by a family of cobblers. Each of the three sons falls in love with her - with dramatic results.

Set at the beginning of the twentieth century, Bates' crackling prose makes a vanished world of factories and mill towns come alive in your mind. You will be rooting for all three sons, even though you know only one can win the girl's heart. But beware, this is no cosy love story. The morals and harshness of the period are evoked in stark detail. A rare treat!

[Laura Rodd · Rating 3 out of 5]

How much misfortune can happen to one woman due to a single mistake made out of love in a Victorian setting. The point is perhaps that physical beauty in females is not ever to be trusted, being attractive to the opposite sex makes the woman culpable for a jealous man's murdering rage, men fighting for her dividing brother from brother, no matter if her heart and intentions are good, her actions are compassionate because in the end she is the source of all sin that happens around her. Perhaps she herself is allowed to live on only to reek havoc elsewhere and to bear the burden of her shame in the form of stillborn children. Sad but well written.

[Donald · Rating 3 out of 5]

The dreary, portentous English countryside makes for good a read in March, most British of months. I enjoy identifying with the attentive yet disoriented heroine; less so with her spooky Fatal Attractionesque determination. She bears a striking semblance to Tess d'Urberville--a parallel which, alongside the narration's frank, rural language and violent horizon, makes good fare for Thomas Hardy-goers and Faulknerites alike.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently watched the Masterpiece Theatre presentation of Country Matters and amalgamation of episodes based upon H.E. Bates and A.E. Coppard's short stories which lead me to check out the source materials. This particular version is an abridgment of Bate's novel, but captures his artistry and characterizations.

[Reena · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Feast of July was my first time reading H.E. Bates and after reading this, I’m surprised his novels went out of print because this beats much of the writing currently being published. A beautifully bittersweet read, with interesting characters, though I wanted Bella to act smarter and more decisively!

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a historical novel of sorts. Set in the early 1900's in England, Bella Ford, a young woman is seduced by a man and then is left alone. She gives birth to a baby that fails to survive and then sets out on a journey to find the man. Along the way she is taken in by a family of shoemakers. I like the writing, setting and characters of this book.

[Laurel Deloria · Rating 4 out of 5]

The cost of revenge vs the forgiveness of Love.
A brooding, suspenseful novel of sensuality and vengenance, set amid the fields and villages of 19th century England. Bella Ford, jilted by her unscrupulous lover, plans revenge

[Tracey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this.I adore the work of HE Bates but had never heard of this novel.

[Jonna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very sensuous novel. I loved reading every page. (Great movie was made of it as well, which was very true, if memory serves, to the novel)