Herbert Ernest Bates was born May 16, 1905 in Rushden, Northamptonshire, England. He left school before the age of seventeen. After brief stints as a reporter and a clerk at a warehouse, he began to establish himself as a writer. His first novel, The Two Sisters , appeared in 1926; in the next fifteen years he published eight novels and more than a dozen short story collections. Among the most critically acclaimed works of his early career are his novel The Poacher (1935), his short story collections Something Short and Sweet (1937), and My Uncle Silas (1939).

In 1931 Bates married Marjorie Helen Cox, and they subsequently moved to Little Chart, Kent, England, where they raised four children. Although family life did not have a marked effect on Bates's output as an author, the outbreak of World War II did affect the direction of his work. In the summer of 1941, Bates was commissioned by...