Elizabeth Bowen Summary

Biography EssayBetween 1923, when her first volume of short stories, Encounters, appeared, and 1975, when her last volume of memoirs, Pictures and Conversations, was published posthumously, Elizab... Read more

Between 1923, when her first volume of short stories, Encounters, appeared, and 1975, when her last volume of memoirs, Pictures and Conversations, was published posthumously, Elizabeth Bowen produced ... Read more

Critical Essay by Paul A. Parrish [The Last September, The House in Paris, The Death of the Heart, and Eva Trout are each] concerned with a young romantic female awakening to life and love and [have] ... Read more

Critical Essay by Walter Sullivan At the end of her career Elizabeth Bowen's work was in a state of decline. Like a baseball pitcher who starts aiming for the plate, Miss Bowen in her closing y... Read more

Critical Essay by Francis Wyndham When Elizabeth Bowen died …, she was at work on a short novel, The Move-In, and a work of non-fiction, to be called Pictures and Conversations after a phrase o... Read more

Critical Essay by Barbara Brothers The Heat of the Day, [Elizabeth Bowen's first post-World War II] novel, is significantly not only a picture of life in England during the war but a novel divi... Read more

Critical Essay by Hermione Lee [There] is a discomforting tone to the first paragraph of [To the North], strongly suggesting that the material world in which it has its being is to be undermined. The ... Read more

Critical Essay by Victoria Glendinning One of the ways the world can be divided up is into those people for whom life only began when they grew up, and those for whom childhood remains the inescapably... Read more

Critical Essay by Eudora Welty [Elizabeth Bowen] wrote with originality, bounty, vigor, style, beauty up to the last…. ["The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen"] makes several n... Read more

Critical Essay by Patricia Craig [Reading The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen] we are aware of steady progress, of increasing mastery of the form…. Her earliest stories (Encounters, 1923, ... Read more

In the following excerpt from his acclaimed critical study of the short story genre first published in 1948, O'Faolain gives a detailed evaluation and appreciation of Bowen's techniques ... Read more

In the following essay, Bidney examines the Tennysonian context of "Tears, Idle Tears" and "The Happy Autumn Fields," deconstructing the psychological tensions of their rep... Read more

In the following essay, Medoff examines Bowen's descriptions of life during wartime in her short fiction. On book application forms at the British Library there occasionally appears this notati... Read more

In the following essay, Jarrett discusses the ambiguous line between reality and fiction in Bowen's short stories. Elizabeth Bowen felt early what she called the 'Anglo-Irish ambivalence... Read more

In the following essay, Coates examines the essentially conservative framework of Friends and Relations, arguing that the narrative defends family and social institutions despite its characters'... Read more

In the following essay, Coates maintains that Bowen's ghost stories “offer some of the most concentrated examples of her moral vision.” By common consent, Elizabeth Bowen was a di... Read more

In the following excerpt, Dunleavy provides an overview of Bowen's life and short fiction. By the end of World War II, the Irish short story had become an established subgenre of twentieth-cent... Read more

In the following essay, Lassner delineates the defining characteristics of Bowen's ghost stories as well as her “comedies of sex and manners.” Ghosts have grown up. Far behind lie... Read more

In the following essay, Parsons asserts that Bowen finds the setting of war-torn London “conducive to a new urban spirit, that of the female wanderer or flâneuse.” Walking in the ... Read more

In the following essay, Shumaker considers the role of disillusionment and alienation in “The Return,” “Summer Night,” and “Ivy Gripped the Steps.” John Halpe... Read more

In the following essay, Coates finds that the usual interpretation of the ending of Eva Trout is a misreading of the work's explicit textual clues. The respectful reviews given to Eva Trout on ... Read more

In the following excerpt, Hanson reassesses Bowen's oeuvre, particularly her representations of young girls and older women, using the theories of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari to provide a... Read more

In the following excerpt, Christensen explores Bowen's use of various means of communication, both spoken and written, in her last four novels. In looking at how Bowen lets her characters conve... Read more

In the following excerpt, Lee examines Bowen's final series of novels—A World of Love, The Little Girls, and Eva Trout—maintaining that all three deal with the sense of uncertaint... Read more

In the following excerpt, Austin discusses Bowen's last four novels—The Heat of the Day, A World of Love, The Little Girls, and Eva Trout—which reveal the writer's renewed ... Read more

In the following essay, Caserio compares the writing styles of Paul de Man and Bowen, concluding that Bowen's works—particularly The Heat of the Day—more properly belong to the mo... Read more

In the following excerpt, Coughlan traces the representation of women's mutual attraction in Bowen's later novels. ‘She abandoned me. She betrayed me.’ ‘Had you a s... Read more