A.E. Coppard is a writer who has been mostly forgotten in the modern world, this collection is a reissuing of his stories. Most of the stories take place in the early 1900s in rural England, which isn't the most exciting thing to read about, and it's true that his stories are pretty slow. However, they are very well written and worth a read.

Are you a fan of “loam and lovechild” fiction? If you enjoy Thomas Hardy, D. H. Lawrence, and Mary Webb, you will be smitten with "The Hurly Burly and Other Stories," by the neglected writer A. E. Coppard (1875-1957), published recently by Ecco. In my favorite story, “The Higgler,” Harvey Witlow drives his cart along country roads to buy whatever is for sale , eggs, bags of apples, odds and ends, and then he resells it. But times are hard, and he is thinking of quitting, when he comes upon a farm owned by a middle-aged woman who becomes his best client. Her beautiful daughter fascinates him, but she is completely silent. One day Mrs. Sadgrove proposes that Harvey marry her daughter, but Harvey shies away. What was the young woman’s secret? Should he or shouldn’t he marry her? Coppard’s lyrical, beautifully-crafted stories, set mostly in rural areas, are among the best of the 20th century.

Pure nostalgia for the fictive rural life of the British isles for this reader who haunted dusty basements full of books in his youth, this long overdue revival of some of last century's finest short stories could only be improved by expansion into a volume of the COLLECTED STORIES rather than just those well selected here. A treasure.

This collection of short stories was okay, but not great. I didn’t find myself wowed by any of the stories, and they are very slow paced and have a generally old-time vibe of a time in the early 1900s. I do appreciate well written and more contemplative narrative story from time to time, and it may simply be that this collection is meant to be savored over a long and languishing period rather than rushed through with each story read back to back. For a short story collection to keep me reading more short stories, I must admit I tend to need a bit more “something” than these were able to provide. In fact, some of the stories did begin to feel like complete novels when recollecting them, but this serves to make the prospect of continuing to read a whole new story a bit more daunting than I was looking for, as well.

A.E. Coppard is an excellent writer of short stories, mostly folk tales, that tell about English life during his time period. His work is out of copyright so it was a pleasure to see this collection for new generations to read. It is an amazing read by a wonderful author that is an experience in how writers used to portray their stories. Highly recommended for the historical reader!

There are many good reasons to buy a new collection of stories from a master story-teller whose work is out of copyright and mostly available on Project Gutenberg by now. One reason is for the feeling of a new book in hand as you read these old stories. One is for the way the stories are packaged and introduced anew in a foreword written by someone you trust--Russell Banks will supply the foreword here, and I'm sure he will give me many new things to think about. Another reason is for the pleasure of encountering a favorite old story, a story you read as a child, maybe, maybe even one that you forgot about until you started to read it again in the new collection.

I read this collection as an electronic ARC made available to me from NetGalley, and some of these pleasures are still to come. I'm anticipating reading the foreword by Russell Banks, for instance, which is not available in the ARC. Also I did miss re-reading my most loved Coppard story, "Adam and Eve and Pinch Me" here, but as compensation I was introduced for the first time to so many of these stories and I enjoyed them very much. It's great to read many Coppard stories at once and to just dive into the wash of his prose, and to experience how differently people used to write stories. Storytelling doesn't make progress from one era to the next--it isn't like science--it's more about fashion and the shape of language that's preferred in a given era. I loved experiencing the differences..

I'm also glad to have been made aware of the ECCO ART OF THE STORY series through this volume, because it's a fascinating selection, one that's been so thoughtfully curated, with a delightful mix of new and old/familiar and less familiar authors.

I plan to buy this book when it's published, to get the full pleasure of this collection. I'll re-review at that time, and I also plan to explore other books in the series.

Thanks to NetGalley and to Ecco for the opportunity to see an advance copy.

A. E. Coppard is a good example of a writer who gained some popularity during his time, but fell out off the scene and is barely remembered today. Evidently he regarded the short story as a distinct device, that an entire arc could be described using an economy of words. Each of these stories concerns English rural life, examining and expanding its potential despite its provincial nature. At times the language is outdated and florid, but it was a true window into another time.