H.E. Bates Companion

A tongue-in-cheek review of the annual Chelsea Flower Show, constituting Bates's first of several works showing his love of gardening and, in particular, flowers. Also of note are two references to "masculine-looking ladies [who] buttonholed them [nurserymen] and bombarded them with the fiercest horticultural catechisms." Bates's fiction features a number of lesbian characters who are consistently portrayed as masculine in appearance and manner. Bates would again review the show in 1935 ("Chelsea") and 1936 ("The Other Chelsea"). In the New Statesman and Nation (May 27, 1933, v:118, pp. 684-685).