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.
This book received very positive reviews from (among others) Elizabeth Janeway
in the New York Times, Elizabeth Bowen
in New Republic, Virginia Peterson
in the New York Herald Tribune, Simon Raven in...
Literary responses
Edna O'Brien
Jonathan Yardley
, reviewing for the Washington Post, stressed O'Brien's brilliance and her nationality. If what you're looking for is a map of Ireland, the fiction of Edna O'Brien will do just fine. She...
Literary responses
Elizabeth Taylor
Reviews of A Game of Hide and Seek included high praise from Marghanita Laski
and Elizabeth Bowen
(some consolation to ET
for her problems with her US publisher), but also carping which she found deeply...
Literary responses
Rebecca West
The Thinking Reed received high praise from contemporary reviewers, including Elizabeth Bowen
and John Crowe Ransom
.
Rollyson, Carl. Rebecca West: A Saga of the Century. Hodder and Stoughton.
145
Literary responses
Susan Hill
Critic Hermione Lee
, reviewing the collection for the Guardian, praised SH
's tender attention to detail, and likened her to L. P. Hartley
and Elizabeth Bowen
.
Lee, Hermione. “Like Buttons in a Box”. Guardian Unlimited.
Literary responses
Ethel Wilson
The book was well received by reviewers at Punch and The Tatler. Noted novelist Elizabeth Bowen
wrote that it was so remarkable as to convince me that its author should go a long way.
Stouck, David. Ethel Wilson: A Critical Biography. University of Toronto Press.
128,129
Literary responses
Elizabeth Jane Howard
It was after this novel that Robert Ostermann
wrote of EJH
in the National Observer as in the same class as Rosamond Lehmann
and Elizabeth Bowen
: female novelists of impressive intelligence and sensibilities that...
Literary responses
Rose Macaulay
The Towers of Trebizond won the James Black Tait prize.
Babington Smith, Constance. Rose Macaulay. Collins.
These books were praised by a whole roster of other women novelists: Elizabeth Bowen
, Phyllis Bentley
, and Pamela Hansford Johnson
. Bowen observed of the first that there was much more to this...
Literary responses
Rose Macaulay
RM
later wrote, it's really a book for those who have travelled to the same place, or are about to.
Macaulay, Rose. Letters to a Friend from Rose Macaulay 1950-1952. Editor Babington Smith, Constance, Fontana.
70
Elizabeth Bowen
called it an enchanting book, of high intelligence.
Elizabeth Bowen
, in her laudatory review, likened the icy sharpness of ICB
's dialogue to the sound of glass being swept up one of these London mornings after a blitz.
Spurling, Hilary. Secrets of a Woman’s Heart. Hodder and Stoughton.
Elizabeth Bowen
, always an admirer of AT
, wrote that if the social historian of the future does not refer to this writer and her novels, he would not know his business. Sales in...
Literary responses
Virginia Woolf
Leonard Woolf
, reading the typescript of this novel at the end of February 1941, judged it to be more vigorous and pulled together than most of her other books, to have more depth and...
Literary responses
Olivia Manning
Growing Up was praised in print by Elizabeth Bowen
and privately by C. P. Snow
. The Times Literary Supplement found the stories distinguished for both their clarity and their good writng but marred by...
Literary responses
Ivy Compton-Burnett
Of this novel ICB
wrote, I have never had such superficial reviews.
Spurling, Hilary. Secrets of a Woman’s Heart. Hodder and Stoughton.
190
They did, however, praise the book, especially in the case of reviewers who were also novelists, like Elizabeth Bowen
, Pamela Hansford Johnson
