The Darling Buds of May

The Darling Buds of May is a novella by British writer H. E. Bates published in 1958. It was the first of a series of five books about the Larkins, a rural family from Kent. The title of the book is a quote from William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate: / Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, / And summer's lease hath all too short a date; [...]