The Year of the Short Corn, and Other Stories
Fred Urquhart author Isobel Murray editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Zeticula Ltd
Published:15th Feb '13
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
"The Year of the Short Corn" was first published in 1949, and the war, or its immediate aftermath, forms a presence in most of the stories. It can be a civilian family gathered together with scattered serving children for a precious Christmas leave, or a son or daughter returning from one of the services; it can illustrate clothes rationing, and the avid fervour with which civilian women greet silk stockings; it can be a 'townser' who thinks too much of himself who becomes snowbound on a North East farm, or the rage and humiliation of a young castrated ox. It can even be an Edinburgh boarding-house with a kenspeckle crew of lodgers (and an oversexed bulldog), under the eyes of a bewildered refugee girl from Vienna. Fred Urquhart was praised by George Orwell for the striking variety of his subject matter, and by others for his splendid dialogue, and his portraits of characters, especially women. None of these critics was wrong, but there is more here to praise!
In a Review in Tribune in 1946, George Orwell called Urquhart "a short story writer with vastly more life in him than the majority of the tribe ...", adding that "Few now writing are able to handle dialogue more skilfully". In 1967, V. S. Pritchett told readers of the New Statesman that Urquhart's "proletarian studies" had "opened the way for playwrights of the past decade". T.L.S.
ISBN: 9781849211253
Dimensions: 203mm x 127mm x 13mm
Weight: 265g
240 pages