Pritchett started out as a journalist and travel writer for The Christian Scientist Monitor, his first stories appearing in the early 1920s in London-based literary periodicals such as the New Statesman, which published his ‘Rain in the Sierra’ in 1923. He would continue writing for that magazine for the next fifty years.
In 1927 his marriage failed, he was fired by the Monitor and he decided to walk across Spain, a journey which led to his first published non-fiction book, Marching Spain (1928) and his debut collection The Spanish Virgins and Other Stories (1930). He would become and remain a prolific writer, publishing novels, travel literature, essays, journalism and many more short stories. Pritchett identified ‘Sense of Humour’ (featured in his 1938 collection You Make Your Own Life) as the one that established his signature style. You can read it online here. As there’s no definitive bibliography it’s impossible to confirm what his first story to appear in print was. His long life (he died in 1997 aged 96) meant that he spent decades as a literary elder statesman at a time when such a role seemed increasingly outmoded. But the stories remain fresh and vital. The aforementioned archive also features what is for my money his best short story, ‘The Sailor.’ It’s been frequently anthologised and bears repeat readings because this, one feels, is How It’s Done.
First published in You Make Your Own Life, Chatto & Windus, 1938
