More Collected Stories

by V.S. Pritchett

This collection of twenty-four stories by the acknowledged modern master spans his entire career and includes two stories never before published in this country

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

276 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Victor Sawdon Pritchett was the first of four children of Walter Sawdon Pritchett and Beatrice Helena (née Martin). His father, a London businessman in financial difficulties, had come to Ipswich to start a shop selling newspapers and stationery. The business was struggling and the couple were lodging over a toyshop at 41 St Nicholas Street where Pritchett was born on 16 December 1900. Beatrice had expected a girl, whom she planned to name after the Queen. Pritchett never liked his first name, which is why he always styled himself with his initials; even close friends would call him VSP.

Pritchett's father was a steady Christian Scientist and unsteady in all else. Walter and Beatrice had come to Ipswich to be near her sister who had married money and lived in Warrington Road. Within a year Walter was declared bankrupt, the family moved to Woodford, Essex, then to Derby, and he began selling women's clothing and accessories as a travelling salesman. Pritchett was soon sent with his brother Cyril to live with their paternal grandparents in Sedbergh, where the boys attended their first school. Walter's business failures, his casual attitude to credit, and his easy deceit obliged the family to move frequently. The family was reunited but life was always precarious; they tended to live in London suburbs with members of Beatrice's family. They returned to Ipswich in 1910, living for a year near Cauldwell Hall Road, trying to evade Walter's creditors. At this time Pritchett attended St. John's School. Subsequently Pritchett attended Alleyn's School, Dulwich, and Dulwich College but he stayed nowhere for very long. When his father went to fight in World War I, Pritchett left school. Later in the war Walter turned his hand to aircraft design, of which he knew nothing, and his later ventures included art needlework, property speculation, and faith healing.

Pritchett was a leather buyer from 1916 to 1920, when he moved to Paris, where he worked as a shop assistant. In 1923 he started writing for the Christian Science Monitor, which sent him to Ireland and Spain. From 1926 he wrote reviews for the paper and for the New Statesman, which later appointed him literary editor.

Pritchett's first book described his journey across Spain (Marching Spain 1928) and Clare Drummer (1929) was about his experiences in Ireland. Whilst in Ireland he met his first wife, Evelyn Vigors, but it was not to be a happy marriage.

Pritchett published five novels but he claimed not to enjoy their creation. His reputation was established by a collection of short stories (The Spanish Virgin and Other Stories (1932)).

In 1936 he divorced his first wife, and married Dorothy Rudge Roberts; they had two children. The marriage lasted until Pritchett's death, although they both had other relationships. His son is the journalist Oliver Pritchett and his grandson (son of Oliver) is the cartoonist Matt Pritchett.

During World War II Pritchett worked for the BBC and the Ministry of Information whilst continuing to submit a weekly essay to the New Statesman. After the war he wrote widely and he started taking teaching positions at universities in the United States: Princeton (1953), the University of California (1962), Columbia University and Smith College. He was fluent in German, Spanish, and French, and published successful biographies of Honoré de Balzac (1973), Ivan Turgenev (1977) and Anton Chekhov (1988), although he did not know Russian and had never visited the Soviet Union.

Pritchett was knighted in 1975 for his services to literature and became Companion of Honour in 1993. His awards include Heinemann Award (1969), PEN Award (1974), W.H. Smith Literary Award (1990), and Golden Pen Award (1993). He died of a stroke in London on 20 March 1997.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V._S._Pr...

Reviews

[Kathy Kattenburg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never heard of V.S. Pritchett before reading these short stories. The book came to me in an indirect way, and it had been on my shelf for years when I decided to give it a try. It's marvelous. I don't think I have ever encountered such a variety of moods, settings, and human types as in this collection -- everything from farcical to terribly sad. Many of the stories here are broadly comic, but also have a sense of poignant melancholy. Also, Pritchett's most interesting characters -- indeed, most of his characters, period -- are physically quite ordinary-looking. Sometimes his descriptions create mental visuals of people who are downright unattractive. Physically. By conventional standards. I find this unusual enough to be really quite astonishing. And welcome.

[Yale Ford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smashing

[Austen to Zafón · Rating 2 out of 5]

Since no description for this book has been entered, here's the blurb from the back of the book, "This collection again brings us a typically diverse and lovingly drawn range of Pritchett characters, from the two hugely fat men who find each other in a pub, "drawn will-lessly together by the magnetic force of their phenomenal obesities"; to the prissy antiques dealer whose major complaint about the war is the lack of gourmet foods, and who finds romance with the holder of extra ration tickets; to the pretentious couple who buy an extravagant house, only to find that the former tenant comes with it." I really enjoyed the prose, which was detailed, imaginative and engrossing, but somehow I just couldn't relate to the stories. It's not just that the book was written in the past. I generally find that easy enough to relate to, loving Maugham, Dickens, Fitzgerald and so on. But I couldn't find anything in common with the characters and didn't really understand their motivations or actions. I got about 1/2 way through and never had any desire to pick the book up again.