A Day in the Dark | Literary Criticism & Book Review

A Day in the Dark Critical Overview

"A Day in the Dark" was first published in the journal Botteghe Oscure in 1955. It appeared in Mademoiselle magazine in 1957 and then became the title story in Bowen's 1965 collection of short stories. In a review of that collection, F. L. H. Jr. praises Bowen's detailed descriptions of setting, concluding that "Miss Bowen carries over a novelistic technique to her short stories." Many other scholars have applauded Bowen's attention to detail in these stories, including Edwin Morgan who writes in his review of A Day in the Dark that in this "rich selection of her short stories," "Miss Bowen shows again and again her skill in evoking atmosphere, weather, gardens, houses, brooding human feelings." He also finds a strong connection between place and the "convincing psychological realism" of her stories. Echoing this conclusion, Laurel Smith, in her article on Bowen in the Dictionary of Literary Biography determines that...
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