SOURCE: "'There Is No Elsewhere': Elizabeth Bowen's Perceptions of War," in Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1, Spring, 1984, pp. 73-81.

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 notation: "It is regretted that this work was destroyed by bombing in the war; we have not been able to acquire a replacement." This statement serves as a reminder of the irreparable damages of war, which destroys history even as it is created. The intricate fabric of British history, woven with a sense of cultural permanence, was burned through during the Blitz. Lives were lost, books were burned, works of art and architecture vanished, a way of life disappeared. Even amid this destruction, however, creativity continued. Elizabeth Bowen's wartime short stories speak to later generations, answering the question: "what must it...