Elizabeth Bowen

Life
1899-1973, b. 7 June; [err. 1900]; Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen; name derived from Ap Owen, established in a ‘Court House’ from Glamorganshire, b. Dublin, descendent of settler Col. Henry Bowen who changed sides in the civil war and received a grant of land in Ireland; dg. Henry Cole Bowen (d.1930) of Bowenscourt (erected 1775 - a house of ‘Roman urbane strongness’), nr. Kildorrey, Co. Cork; house suffered attack in 1798; her father slipped into mental illness from 1907; moved to England with her mother, on the advice of her father’s doctor; mother d. 1912; subsequently raised by aunts; ed. Doune House, Kent, TCD and Oxon.; participated in Bloomsbury society; befriended by Rose Macauley, who assisted her in finding a publisher for a first collection, Encounters (1923); m. Alan Charles Cameron, Scottish educationalist and broadcaster, then sec. of Education to City of Oxford, living at Old Headington (Oxford), 1923; The Last September (1929), set in 1920 and centred on the character of Lois Farquar; contrib. to Lady Cynthia Asquith, The Funny Bone (1928); inherited Bowen’s Court, Co. Cork, 1930; ed. Faber Book of Modern Stories (1937), describing the ‘new literature’ as ‘an affair of reflexes, of immediate susceptibility’; issued The Death of the Heart (1938); served as air warden in 1939; British Min. of Information, posted in Dublin 1940; contrib. ‘The Big House’ to The Bell [q.d.]; sent reports on state of opinion from Ireland, travelling between London, Dublin, and Bowen’s Court, and citing opinions of James Dillon and others; issued Bowen’s Court (1942); awarded CBE 1948, Hon. DLitt., TCD 1949; DLitt, Oxon., 1959 [FDA 1952], IAL 1970; inherited Bowen’s Court in 1930 [?DIL 1938; but see FDA, infra], but did not move there until 1952 (see Bowen’s Court) [FDA 1951]; Cameron died, 1952; A World of Love (1955), dealing with big house character Jane Danby’s adaption to a changing reality; taught in the States during 1950s; Bowen’s Court, and demolished, 1959; MIAL, 1937; air-raid warden, London, 1939; DLitt TCD, 1949; DLitt Oxon., 1952; buried, with husband, in Farahy churchyard, formerly on Bowen estate; papers held at Harry Ransom Humanities Research Centre ( Texas U., Austin). NCBE OCEL DIL DIW DIB KUN ATT FDA OCIL

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Works
Novels, The Hotel (London: Constable 1927), and Do. [rep. edn.] (London: Vintage 2003), 208pp.; The Last September (London: Constable 1929; NY: Dial Press 1929; London: Jonathan Cape 1948; NY: Avon 1952; Penguin 1988 [infra]; Friends and Relations (London: Constable; NY: Dial 1931); To the North (London: Gollancz 1932 NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1933); The House in Paris (London: Gollancz 1935; NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1936; London: Jonathan Cape 1982); The Death of the Heart (London: Gollancz 1938) [FDA ERR 1935 &c]; Look at All Those Roses: Short Stories (London: Gollancz; NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1941); The Heat of the Day (London: Jonathan Cape 1949; rep. edn. 1982), and Do. (NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1949), 372pp. [ded. Charles Ritchie; infra]; A World of Love (London: Jonathan Cape; NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1955), 224pp.; The Little Girls (London: Jonathan Cape; NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1964); Eva Trout, or Changing Scenes (NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1968; London: Jonathan Cape 1969); The Shelbourne (London: Vintage 2001), 208pp.

Short Stories, Encounters (London: Sidgwick & Jackson 1923; NY: Boni & Liveright 1925) [republ. in Early Stories]; Anne Lee’s and Other Short Stories (London: Sidgwick & Jackson 1926; NY: Boni & Liveright 1926) [also republ. in Early Stories, 1950]; Joining Charles and Other Stories (London: Constable; NY: Dial Press 1929); The Cat Jumps and Other Stories (London: Gollancz 1934); The Demon Lover and Other Stories (London: Jonathan Cape 1945) [infra], Do., publ. in America as Ivy Gripped the Steps (NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1946); Early Stories (NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1951); Stories by Elizabeth Bowen (NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1959); A Day in the Dark and Other Stories (London: Jonathan Cape 1965); Irish Stories (Dublin: Poolbeg 1978); Angus Wilson, intro., The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen, intro. Angus Wilson (London: Jonathan Cape 1980 [1981]).

Commentary, English Novelists (London: W. Collins 1942); Seven Winters: Memories of a Dublin Childhood (Dublin: Cuala Press 1942; London: Longmans, Green 1943), Do., publ, in America as Seven Winters: Memories of a Dublin Childhood and Afterthoughts, Pieces on Writing (NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1962) [see sep. printing infra]; Why do I Write (London: Percival, Marshall 1948); Collected Impressions (London: Longmans, Green; NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1950) [incl. ‘The Big House’ (first pub. in The Bell), pp.195-100', ‘Notes on Writing a Novel’, &c.]; Bowen’s Court (London: Longmans, Green; NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1942; 2nd edn., with afterword, London: Longmans, Green; NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1964); Do., (NY: Ecco Press 1978), Do., with intro. by Hermione Lee (London: Virago 1984), and Do. [resized facs. of 1942] (Cork: Collins Press 1998), 476pp., 16 pls. [infra]; The Shelbourne: A Centre in Dublin Life for More Than a Century (London: George G. Harrap 1951; rep. 1955), 200pp. [incl. Index]; Do., pub. in America as The Shelbourne Hotel (NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1951); A Time in Rome (NY: Alfred A. Knopf; London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1960); Afterthoughts, Pieces on Writing (London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1962); Pictures and Conversations, foreword S. C. Brown (London: Allen Lane 1975). Also Hermione Lee, sel. and intro., The Mulberry Tree: Writings of Elizabeth Bowen, (Dublin: Poolbeg 1978; London: Virago 1986). See also Elizabeth Bowen, Notes from Eire: Espionage Reports to Winston Churchill 1940-42, with a review of Irish neutrality (Millstreet, Co Cork: Aubane Historical Society; Belfast: Athol Press 1999), [q.pp.]; A Time in Rome (1960), essays, cited in DIW and Hyland [1st edn.] (Jan. 1966); Bowen, intro. to J. S. Le Fanu, Uncle Silas (Cresset Press 1947); The Good Tiger (NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1965), for children; Anthony Trollope, A New Judgement (OUP 1946); English Novelists (London: Collins 1942); Why Do I Write, and Exchange of Views Between Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene, and V. S. Pritchett (Percival Marshall 1948); A Time in Rome (NY: Alfred A. Knopf; London: Longmans 1960); Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South, intro. by Elizabeth Bowen [4pp.] (Lehman[n] 1957); intro. to A. P. Ryan, ed., Critics Who Have Influenced Taste (1965); Elizabeth Bowen’s Irish Stories (Dublin: Poolbeg 1978), by arrang. with Jonathan Cape [this ed. contains intro. by Victoria Glendenning].

Miscellaneous, Contributed ‘She gave him’ [sect.] to Consequences, a complete story in the manner of the old parlour game in nine chapters (Waltham St Lawrence: Golden Cockerel Press 1932), [3] 66pp., ill, with John van Druten; G. B. Stern; A. E. Coppard; Sean O’Faolain; Norah Hoult; Hamish Maclaren; Ronald Fraser; and Malachi Whitaker.

Films, Death of the Heart, TV feature by Sean Ó Mordha, 1998, RTE 1 2 Feb. 1999, and BBC2 Bookmark, 7 Feb. 1999; The Last September filmed 1999, dir. Deborah Warner, screenplay by John Banville.

Anthologies, Katie Donovan, A. N. Jeffares & Brendan Kennelly, eds., Ireland’s Women (Dublin: G&M 1994), selects ‘The Most Unforgettable Character I’ve Ever Met’, from The Mulberry Tree (Poolbeg 1978). Hermione Lee, The Secret Self, A Century Of Short Stories By Women (Phoenix 1995) incls. Bowen’s story, ‘Her Table Spread’. Other anthologies that include stories by Bowen incl. Derek Hudson, ed., Classic English Short Stories 1930-1955 (OUP 1971) and Evelyn Conlon & Hans-Christian Oeser, eds., Cutting the Night in Two: Short Stories by Irish Women Writers (Dublin: New Island 2001).

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Criticism

  • Jocelyn Brooke, Elizabeth Bowen [Suppl. to British Book News No. 28] (London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1952), 32pp.;
  • Sean Ó Faolain, The Vanishing Hero: Studies in Novelists of the Twenties (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode 1956);
  • William Heath, Elizabeth Bowen: An Introduction (Madison: Winsconsin UP 1961);
  • Allen E. Austin, Elizabeth Bowen (NY: Twayne 1971) [err. A. Allen, FDA];
  • Harriet Blodgett, Patterns of Reality, Elizabeth Bowen’s Novels (The Hague, Mouton 1975);
  • Edwin J. Kenney, Elizabeth Bowen [Irish Writers Series] (Lewisburg: Bucknell UP 1975);
  • Victoria Glendinning, Elizabeth Bowen: Portrait of a Writer (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson 1977);
  • Gary T. Davenport, ‘Elizabeth Bowen and the Big House’, in Southern Humanities Review, 8 (1974), pp.27-34;
  • Harold Bloom, ed., Elizabeth Bowen: Modern Critical Views (NY: Chelsea House, 1981) [var. 1987; incl. Richard Gill, ‘The Country House in a Time of Trouble’, pp.51-61];
  • Martha McGowan, ‘The Enclosed Garden in Elizabeth Bowen’s A World of Love’, in Eire-Ireland, 16, 1 (Spring 1981), pp.50-70;
  • Hermione Lee, Elizabeth Bowen: An Estimation (London: Vision; NJ: Barnes & Noble 1981);
  • J’nan M. Sellery, and William O. Harris, Elizabeth Bowen, A Bibliography (Texas 1981);
  • Deirdre Laigle, ‘Images of the Big House in Elizabeth Bowen’s The Last September’, in Cahiers Irlandaises, 9 (1984), pp.61-79;
  • Bridget O’Toole, ‘Three Writers of the Big House, Elizabeth Bowen, Molly Keane, and Jennifer Johnston’, in Gerald Dawe and Edna Longley, eds., Across the Roaring Hill, The Protestant Imagination in Modern Ireland (Belfast: Blackstaff 1985), pp.124-138;
  • Margaret Scanlan, ‘Rumors of War: Elizabeth Bowen’s The Last September and J. G. Farrell’s Troubles’, in Eire-Ireland, 20, 2 (Summer 1985), pp.70-89;
  • Patricia Craig, Elizabeth Bowen (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1986);
  • Phyllis Lassner, ‘The Past is a Burning Pattern: Elizabeth Bowen’s The Last September’, in Eire-Ireland, 21, 1 (Spring 1986), pp.40-54;
  • Dominique Gauthier, L’image du réal dans les romans d’Elizabeth Bowen (1986);
  • Toni O’Brien Johnson, ‘Light and Entertainment in Elizabeth Bowen’s Irish Novels’, in Ariel, 18 (April 1987), pp.47-62;
  • Phyllis Lassner, Elizabeth Bowen (London: Macmillan; Savage, MD: Barnes & Noble 1990), 186pp.;
  • John Cronin, ‘Elizabeth Bowen, The Last September’, in The Anglo-Irish Novel, Vol II (Belfast: Appletree Press 1990), pp.114-28;
  • Gearóid Cronin, ‘The Big House Novel and the Irish Landscape in the Work of Elizabeth Bowen, in J. Genet, ed., The Big House in Ireland (Dingle: Brandon; NY: Barnes & Noble 1991), pp.143-62;
  • Phyllis Lassner, Elizabeth Bowen: A Study of the Short Fiction (NY: Twayne 1991);
  • Heather Bryant Jordan, How Will the Heart Endure?: Elizabeth Bowen and the Landscape of War (Michigan UP 1992), 253pp.;
  • Roy Foster, ‘The Irishness of Elizabeth Bowen’, in Paddy and Mr Punch (London: Allen Lane 1993), pp.102-22;
  • Alexander Gonzalez, ‘Elizabeth Bowen’s “Her Table Spread”: A Joycean Irihs Story’, in Studies in Short Fiction, 30, 3 (Summer 1993), pp.343-48;
  • Renee C. Hoogland, Elizabeth Bowen: a Reputation in Writing (NYU Press 1994);
  • Declan Kiberd, ‘Elizabeth Bowen - The Dandy in Revolt’, in Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation (London: Jonathan Cape 1995) [Chap. 20], pp.364-79;
  • Lis Christensen, ‘A Reading of Elizabeth Bowen’s “A Day in the Dark”’, in Irish University Review, 27, 2 (Autumn/Winter 1997), pp.299-309;
  • Eibhear Walshe, Elizabeth Bown Remembered [Annual Farrahy Lecture] (Dublin: Four Courts 1998), 96pp.;
  • Benedict Kiely, ‘The Great Gazebo’, A Raid into Dark Corners and Other Essays (Cork UP 1999), pp. 31-44; espec. pp.34-36;
  • Vera Kreilkamp, Anglo-Irish Novel and the Big House (Syracuse UP; Eurospan 1999);
  • Ruth Frehner, The Colonizers' Daughters: Gender In The Anglo-Irish Big House Novel (Tubingen: Franacke 1999), 256pp;
  • Peter Somerville Large, The Irish Country House, A Social History (London: Sinclair-Stevenson 1995);
  • Lis Christensen, Elizabeth Bowen: The Later Fiction (Museum Tusculanum 2001), qpp.;
  • Raphael Ingelbien, ‘Gothic Genealogies: Dracula, Bowen’s Court and Anglo-Irish Psychology’, in ELH [English Literary History] 70, 4 (2004), p.1089ff. [infra]

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Notes
Desmond Clarke, Ireland in Fiction: A Guide to Irish Novels, Tales, Romances and Folklore [Pt. 2] (Cork: Royal Carbery 1985), lists The Last September (1929), 312pp.

Anne Owen Weekes, ed., Unveiling Treasures (Dublin: Attic 1993) cites passage from Last September, with plot summary.

Elaine Showalter, A Literature of their Own (1984), bio-note: 1899-1973.

Hyland Books (1997) lists Lady Cynthia Asquith, ed., The Funny Bone, New Humorous Stories (London: Jarrold 1928), 287pp.; Selected Stories [Hour Glass Library] (Dublin 1946); ed.: The Faber Book of Modern Stories [1st ed.] (1937) [incl. Bowen, Joyce, O’Connor, O’Faolain, O’Flaherty among the 26 authors]; Jocelyn Brooke, 'Elizabeth Bowen' Supplement to British Book News, No. 28. 1952.

Peter Ellis (Cat. 19; 2003) lists Angela Thirkill, An Angela Thirkill Omnibus [Ankle Deep; High Rising; Wild Strawberries] (London: Hamish Hamilton 1966), with 3pp. Introduction by Elizabeth Bowen.

Belfast Public Library holds Shelbourne, Centre of Dublin Life (1951).

Harry Ransom Humanities Research Centre (Texas Univ., Austin), holds MSS of the majority of her novels together with extensives correspondence [link].

Peter Somerville Large, The Irish Country House, A Social History (London: Sinclair-Stevenson 1995), includes account of Bowen’s disposal of Bowen’s Court; see review by Desmond Guinness, in The Irish Times (1 July, 1995).

Lunchtime express: Elizabeth Bowen is identified as a reader for the publisher to whom Briony sends her manuscript in Ian MacEwan’s shortlisted Booker novel Atonement (Jonathan Cape 2001): ‘Simply put, you need the backbone of the story. It may interest you to know that one of your avid readers was Mrs Elizabeth Bowen. She picked up the bundle of typescript in an idle moment while passing through this office on her way to luncheon, asked to take it home to read, and finished it that afternoon. Initially, she thought the prose “too full, too cloying”, but with “redeeming shades of Dusty Answer” (which I wouldn’t have thought of at all). Then she was “hooked for a while” and finally she gave us some notes, which are, as it were, mulched into the above.’ (p.314.)

Booked: In 1972 a Booker judges’ panel consisting of George Steiner, Cyril Connolly and Elizabeth Bowen gave the prize to John Berger for G, who handed half of it to the Black Panthers.

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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)