V. S. Pritchett was an English short story writer, travel writer, biographer, journalist and novelist.
His earlier years were influenced by reading books of Dickens and Hardy.
Pritchett, told the story of his life in two volumes. The first of these is A Cab at the Door: A Memoir (the British subtitle is Childhood and Youth, 1900-1920), and the second is Midnight Oil (1971).
He published his first novel, Clare Drummer, in 1929 and a collection of short stories, The Spanish Virgin and Other Stories, in 1930. Nothing Like Leather, which appeared in 1935, traces the material success and moral disintegration of a man. Other novels were Mr. Beluncle (1951), Balzac (1974)
Complete Collected Stories
This book was published in 1990 and contained 82 short stories, written between the 1930s and the 1980s.
Since the span of years is so wide, the stories also show a range in culture and fashion. There are some light stories briefly describing the love games between young men and women. There are few dark and sentimental pieces as well.
In reviewing his Collected Stories (1982), Valentine Cunningham, who called Pritchett "the best living English author, " commented that he was "always on the alert for the illustrative moment, " that he turned "human moments into epiphanies, " and that he was "celebrating the heroism of banal life." The last comment rings true, for the lives examined are only seemingly banal and the deep current beneath them is all. Cunningham singled out for special praise " Many Are Disappointed"; however, another superior story, "Blind Love, " which deals with a blind man and his housekeeper who hides from the world a disfiguring birthmark that the blind man cannot see, truly illustrates that a rich and turbulent life can exist beneath an outwardly placid, banal one.
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