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 tale, about of two young girls who rely on their imagination to escape the trauma they experience during war, is reminiscent of Elizabeth Bowen
's wartime tales of psychic aberration in the face of...
death
Charles Darwin
CD
, naturalist, died at his estate of Downe in Kent, which became a girls' boarding-school in 1907 and is now a museum.
Elizabeth Bowen
, who was a girl at the school, was...
Literary responses
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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.
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
Literary responses
Joanna Cannan
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...
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...
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...
Textual Features
Marjorie Bowen
MB
credits British women novelists for modifying the methods of the great European novelists, noting in particular Dorothy Richardson
's perfection of the stream-of-consciousness technique. She draws a contrast between Dorothy Richardson
's Miriam and...
Friends, Associates
Stella Benson
Back in London after various summer travels, SB
met Eddie Marsh
, Rebecca West
, and Elizabeth Bowen
.
Grant, Joy. Stella Benson: A Biography. Macmillan.
251
Textual Features
Sybille Bedford
Reviewer Pamela Petro
notes the importance in SB
's works of her own distinctly worldly voice, whose deliberately knowing, clever, and aristocratic qualities are likely on occasion to irk more modern sensibilities.
Petro, Pamela. “A traveler’s tales”. Women’s Review of Books, Vol.
Reviewer Lara Feigel
found that PB
's allusions to actual, historical people (Paul sharing sentiments, his place of work, the circumstances of his falling in love, with Graham Greene
; Elinor owing something to Elizabeth Bowen
Friends, Associates
Lady Cynthia Asquith
Cynthia was also a friend of Viola Meynell
and of Enid Bagnold
, whose Sussex homes were close to that of the Asquiths during the Second World War. Thirkell, as well as Lawrence, Bagnold, and...
Travel
Lady Cynthia Asquith
Her old age included travel: three visits to Elizabeth Bowen
in Ireland and one to Tolstoy
's estate of Yasnaya Polyana in Russia (with two days in Moscow and one in Leningrad) in connection...