To The North

Elizabeth Bowen was born in Dublin in 1899, the only child of an Irish lawyer and land-owner. She travelled a great deal, dividing most of her time between London and Bowen's Court, the family house in County Cork which she inherited. Her first book, a collection of shorts stories, Encounters, was published in 1923. The Hotel (1926) was her first novel. She was awarded the CBE in 1948, and received honorary degrees from Trinity College, Dublin in 1949, and from Oxford University in 1956. The Royal Society of Literature made her a Companion of Literature in 1965. Elizabeth Bowen died in 1973.

"To the North and The Death of the Heart are among the finest novels of her generation" -- V.S. Pritchett "A lavishness of imagination is brought to bear upon small moments, and the writing is of such intensity that a character is revealed in one expression, a way of life disclosed in a single scene" -- Peter Ackroyd Sunday Times "Haunting novels of bad faith and betrayal" Guardian "She startles us by sheer originality of mind and boldness of sensibility into seeking our world afresh...Out of the plainest things - the drawing of a curtain - she can make something electric and urgent" -- V.S. Pritchett