Inspiring Older Readers

posted on 13 Jan 2017

Selected Stories by A.E. Coppard

I have never been a huge fan of the short story form. That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate a good short story but I’m not temperamentally drawn to them – I’ve too often found myself frustrated and disappointed by the way they end too soon or go on too long. However, what I also think is that short story writers – those who make a specialism of the short story form – are a breed all their own. It’s a format that looks casual and easy to do but is in reality devilishly difficult – rather like poetry it’s unforgiving and bad short story writing sticks out like a sore thumb.

So short story writers who endure and who are admired by other authors who don’t necessarily have the skills needed for the art are worth taking notice of. A(lfred) E(dgar) Coppard was one of these masters of the form and this selection of his short stories is a lovely introduction to this author who has rather slipped out of public sight.

Born into poverty in 1878, the son of a politically radical tailor, Coppard himself grew up with progressive views and became a member of the Independent Labour Party. He travelled to post-revolutionary Russia along with a small delegation of other writers, including Doris Lessing, who writes the affectionate introduction to this volume.

Coppard was forced to leave school early but became a furiously driven autodidact and eventually worked his way to Oxford. He wanted to be a writer at any cost and despite the privation it represented he started selling short stories to magazines to make a living. His reputation continued to grow and by the late 1930s he was being recognised as one of the UK’s major literary talents

The stories in this volume are a reflection of his range. Coppard was fascinated by the life of rural England and a great number of his stories have this as a setting. The stories are sometimes short and cryptic – Mordecai and Cocking for example – with a very idiosyncratic vocabulary and sentence construction or more traditional and longer with a sort of detached and wry tone that is reminiscent of a Wells short story. Some of Coppard’s  best regarded work has a playful supernatural edge to it – Adam and Eve & Pinch Me – and these really reminded me of the ghost stories of Walter De La Mare in tone and style.

Doris Lessing thought that Coppard’s real strength was the way his stories unfold organically, revealing the life of the people that populate his world. She described it in this way:

He was an exquisite craftsman, and wrote well-made tales. But their shape was that of the growth of people or events, so that watching one unfold you have to cry ‘What else? Of course!’ as you do in life.

For me, the longer stories were the most satisfying of the selection on offer here and I very much liked the ones that focussed on the life and circumstances of ordinary, rural communities and individuals – The Higgler is an excellent example of what the author can do.

I suspect Coppard is well out of fashion at the moment and I don’t know how much of his considerable output is still in print. Selections or small collections like this are not hard to come across on the second hand market and if you’re a fan of the short story you really should check him out.

Terry Potter

January 2017