Bowen, Elizabeth. (1899 - 1973).

L i f e

- born and spent her childhood in Ireland (Bowen’s Court) x but: settled in England

W o r k

The Last September (1929):

- her early novel, concerned with the tensions in the history of her landed family and the divided loyalties of the increasingly dispossessed Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland

The Death of the Heart (1938):

- her most Jamesian novel, set in the England of 1930s

- concerned with the loss of innocence in the face of shallow sophistication and the glamour of metropolitan values

Bowen’s Court (1942):

- her memoir, concerned with the life in Ireland

The Heat of the Day (1949):

- her masterpiece, concerned with London and Londoners changing, adjusting, and adapting under the impact of the Blitz

- the British 'Home Front' as seen by an upper-class Anglo-Irish woman

- the female protagonist's lover turns out to be an enemy spy, a betrayer both of Britain and of the protagonist herself

- the protagonist and her soldier son maintain the allegiance to Britain

The Little Girls (1964):

- her penultimate novel, concerned with the sometimes painful difference between the perceptions of children x adults

Look at all those Roses (1941) and The Demon Lover (1945):

- collections of short stories