The Europe That Was: A Collection of Short Stories

by Geoffrey Household

Tales of Europe, before and after the war, when lives could change in an instant

Fleeing the Cuban revolution, a businessman’s return to England is blocked by the secret police of General Franco. In Hungary, a peasant treasures a barrel of wine as a symbol of the world she lost during the war. At a Romanian ball, in the frenzied years that followed the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a British traveler finds himself challenged to a duel. And in England, an American pilot stumbles into an auction and discovers that the Greek bowl in his hands may be worth far more than he is willing to pay.
 
From country to country, Geoffrey Household takes us through the back alleys and open fields of the continent he knows so well, and finds that there is a beautiful madness in the European spirit that no war can kill.


Contents:

Eastern Approaches
-Kindly Stranger
-Give Us This Day
-Dionysus and the Pard
-Low Water

Romania
-Sabres on the Sand
-The Cook-runner

Hungary
-Tell These Men to Go Away
-The Picket Lines of Martin Hevessy
-Roll Out the Barrel

Spain
-Water of Iturrigorri
-Three of Castile
-The Pejemuller
-Technique
-Secret Police

England
-Twilight of a God
-The Greeks Had No Word for It
-Eggs as Ain't
-Abner of the Porch

France
-The Sword and the Rake
-Champion Antiochus

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

British author of mostly thrillers, though among 37 books he also published children's fiction. Household's flight-and-chase novels, which show the influence of John Buchan, were often narrated in the first person by a gentleman-adventurer. Among his best-know works is' Rogue Male' (1939), a suggestive story of a hunter who becomes the hunted, in 1941 filmed by Fritz Lang as 'Man Hunt'. Household's fast-paced story foreshadowed such international bestsellers as Richard Condon's thriller 'The Manchurian Candidate' (1959), Frederick Forsyth's 'The Day of the Jackal' (1971), and Ken Follett's 'Eye of the Needle' (1978) .

In 1922 Household received his B.A. in English from Magdalen College, Oxford, and between 1922 and 1935 worked in commerce abroad, moving to the US in 1929. During World War II, Household served in the Intelligence Corps in Romania and the Middle East. After the War he lived the life of a country gentleman and wrote. In his later years, he lived in Charlton, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, and died in Wardington.

Household also published an autobiography, 'Against the Wind' (1958), and several collections of short stories, which he himself considered his best work.

Reviews

[Terry Mulcahy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of very short stories, very enjoyable. There is aa sense of sampling the flavors of Europe, a bit of each of various cultures. Some are exceptionally well written, and one, Secret Police, is surprisingly hilarious.

[Cidney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmm. I have read Rogue Male, my favourite book along with Pride and Prejudice, so many times that it's falling to pieces, I have read another book by Geoffrey Household whose title escapes me (can see the cover but not the title, long covid), but this book? I never really got into it, it was a collection of short and very short stories from different countries in Europe. It was interesting in that this was set in times some after the first world war and some before and after the second, so fascinating to read of what life was like. However the stories would have been so much better if they were actually written as full books I felt, so this was not one of my favourite Household books.