Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Elizabeth Bowen
-
Standard Name: Bowen, Elizabeth
Birth Name: Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen
Nickname: Bitha
EB
published ten novels, seventy-nine short stories, a history of her Anglo-Irish family, and a large body of critical and other nonfictional writing. Her novels and short stories blend romance (the perils of innocence, and its loss, are favourite themes) with comedy and satire, and sometimes with hints of the occult. She was well known and widely read during her life, which occupied about three-quarters of the twentieth century. Eudora Welty
claimed that EBwrote with originality, bounty, vigor, style, beauty up to the last.
Lassner, Phyllis. Elizabeth Bowen. Twayne.
173
Hoogland, Renée C. Elizabeth Bowen: A Reputation in Writing. New York University Press.
ET
wrote that she liked routine and was always disconcerted when I am asked for my life story, for nothing sensational, thank heavens, has ever happened.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
139
She had a passion for modern painting, and...
Intertextuality and Influence
Penelope Lively
As controversy has been Henry's domain, reading has been Charlotte's. For ever, reading has been central, the necessary fix, the support system. Her life has been informed by reading. Reading has taught her how sex...
Intertextuality and Influence
Anita Brookner
Its male protagonist—still unusual for Brookner—is an academic, parent of a small daughter. His wife leaves him during the course of the story: though he idealises women, he does not achieve a successful relationship with...
But it is difficult to mark precisely when she moved to a depressed and then to a suicidal state. Elizabeth Bowen
last visited VW
on 13 and 14 February, and later recalled: I remember her...
Friends, Associates
Julia O'Faolain
Living in different countries, JOF
has moved in different literary circles, not all Irish or English. In Florence she and her husband were welcomed into the circle of the cosmopolitan writer Violet Trefusis
at Villa...
Friends, Associates
Rose Macaulay
In 1921 RM
was spending several nights a week in a room she rented in the large house of writer Naomi Royde-Smith
at 44 Prince's Gardens, Kensington.
Emery, Jane. Rose Macaulay: A Writer’s Life. John Murray.
191
Babington Smith, Constance. Rose Macaulay. Collins.
100
Chosen by Royde-Smith as a...
Friends, Associates
Virginia Woolf
VW
met Elizabeth Bowen
, beginning a friendship that would continue until the former's death.
Lee, Hermione. Virginia Woolf. Chatto and Windus.
629
Friends, Associates
Bryher
The flat became a gathering place for friends including the Sitwells (Bryher grew especially close to Edith
and Osbert
), Elizabeth Bowen
, and Ivy Compton-Burnett
.
Schaffner, Perdita. “Keeper of the Flame”. H.D., Woman and Poet, edited by Michael King, National Poetry Foundation, pp. 27-33.
32
Bryher,. The Days of Mars. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
18
While in London, Bryher increased the...
Friends, Associates
Barbara Pym
BP
and Elizabeth Bowen
met at the home of mutual friends in St John's Wood, London.
Pym, Barbara. A Very Private Eye. Editors Holt, Hazel and Hilary Pym, Macmillan.
186
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Jenkins
In her day EJ
knew most of the London literary world. She met Agatha Christie
, whom she described as the most elegantly dressed elderly woman I have ever seen.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. The View from Downshire Hill. Michael Johnson.
ST
made her own the friendship with Elizabeth Robins
that had begun because Robins was a friend of her mother's. She was also close to playwright-producer Harley Granville-Barker
and particularly to his second wife, the...
Friends, Associates
Molly Keane
Molly's close friends included novelist Elizabeth Bowen
and actress Peggy Ashcroft
. Visiting the Perry family home at Woodrooff, she met John Perry
, who later collaborated with her on plays, and Bobby Keane
...
