The Last Pool and Other Stories

The Last Pool and Other Stories is a 1950 collection of short stories by the English author Patrick O'Brian. It was his first published book under that name (though he had published several works under his birth name Patrick Russ as a teenager). The thirteen stories are largely about rural experiences, focusing on hunting, shooting and fishing. Published by Secker and Warburg, the collection included several stories that would later be republished in The Walker and other stories.[2] The collection was both a critical and financial success for O'Brian.

The Last Pool and Other Stories
AuthorPatrick O'Brian
LanguageEnglish
GenreShort stories
PublishedLondon[1]
PublisherSecker and Warburg[1]
Publication date
1950[1]
Media typePrint
Pages216[1]

Contents

The collection includes the following stories:[3]

  1. "The Last Pool"
  2. "The Green creature"
  3. "The Returns"
  4. "The Happy despatch"
  5. "The Virtuous Pelga"
  6. "The Drawing of the Curranwood badgers"
  7. "It must have been a branch, they said"
  8. "The Steep slope of Gally y Wenallt"
  9. "The Long day running"
  10. "Name calls"
  11. "The Dawn flighting"
  12. "The Trap"
  13. "The Little death"

Themes and style

The writer and critic Steve Bodio described the stories as "some straight forward," and "some supernatural" and "uncanny" in the tradition of tales by T.H. White from the 1930s and Geoffrey Household from the 1950s.[4] He noted that some have a "touch of terror."[4]

The book was published when O'Brian's English birth was not well known, some reviewers focused on the "Irish" elements within the stories. Bodio described the book as capturing something Irish in its "uncanny atmosphere".[4] And an Observer reviewer wrote "This Charming book by an Irish sportsman is a genuine collection of tales of the Irish countryside."[5]

Reception and success

Reviews of the collection were generally favourable. Both The Irish Times and the Irish novelist and playwright Lord Dunsany in The Observer gave positive reviews.[2] The Western Morning News described the stories as taking "their tense drama in hunting, fishing and shooting, and their realism in the author's intimate knowledge." The reviewer particularly liked the story "The Trap" that had "rare poetical qualities" and that "exhibits a fine sense of period and of the mind of a dolish poacher".[6] In his book Sportsman's Library, Steve Bodio described the collection as containing "some of the best fishing and hunting writing I have seen".[4]

Sales of the collection gave O'Brian more confidence in his writing, and he earned £30 beyond the advance from his publisher Secker and Warburg.[2] According to his one of his biographers, Dean King, O'Brian used the advance to pay for hot water and electricity for the flat that he was living in with his wife.[2]

References
  1. "British Library Item details". primocat.bl.uk. Retrieved 29 February 2020.
  2. King, Dean (2001). Patrick O'Brian: A Life. Macmillan. pp. 144–145. ISBN 9780805059779.
  3. A.E. Cunningham, ed. (1994). "Bibliography". Patrick O'Brian: Critical Essays and a Bibliography. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 119. ISBN 9780393036268. The Last Pool and Other Stories.
  4. Bodio, Stephen (2 April 2013). Sportsman's Library: 100 Essential, Engaging, Offbeat, and Occasionally Odd Fishing and Hunting Books for the Adventurous Reader. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 54-56. ISBN 9780762794034.
  5. Cook-Lynn, Elizabeth (2001). Anti-Indianism in Modern America: A Voice from Tatekeya's Earth. University of Illinois Press. p. 88. ISBN 9780252026621.
  6. "New Books: Pilgrim Ways in West". The Western Morning News. British Newspaper Archive. 23 August 1950.
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