Elizabeth Bowen – författare

Krigstidens London under bombningarna, det explosiva fysiska rummet såväl som känslorna och föreställningarna, har väl aldrig skildrats med sådan ingående intensitet som hos Elizabeth Bowen. Då inte minst i Älskaren som var demon och andra berättelser [The Demon Lover and Other Stories, 1945], hennes viktigaste enskilda novellsamling. Denna samling speglar också hennes komplexa förhållande till hemlandet Irland, där hon som barn växte upp i den styrande angloirländska klassen. Människorna i dessa noveller lever i krigets extrema och akuta vardag, samtidigt som de själva blir ett slags spökhistorier; i drömmar om ett definitivt svunnet förflutet eller genom annan flykt från verkligheten - som till exempel i den oförglömliga, hallucinatoriska titelnovellen.En av 1900-talets stora engelskspråkiga klassiker i novellgenren återutges härmed, i svensk översättning av Viveka Starfelt.ELIZABETH BOWEN [1899-1973] var en irländsk författare, som i dag räknas till 1900-talets stora namn i den engelska litteraturen.Hjärtats död [The Death of the Heart, 1938] är ett av hennes mest centrala verk; en av de stora romanerna från förkrigstidens England, inkluderad på såväl Time Magazines som Modern Librarys listor över 1900-talets 100 bästa engelskspråkiga romaner.

'One of the best novels about a young woman that I’ve ever read' Greta GerwigWhen sixteen-year-old Portia is orphaned, she is plunged into the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home. There she encounters the attractive cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and he fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayal - and sets in motion one of the most moving and desperate flights of the heart in modern literature.'One of the last century's greatest woman writers' Guardian'This is a stunning portrait of the human heart, a raw account of romantic betrayal and the pains of growing up' Sunday Times **One of the 50 best books of the past 100 years**

It is wartime London, and the carelessness of people with no future flows through the evening air. Stella discovers that her lover Robert is suspected of selling information to the enemy. Harrison, the British intelligence agent on his trail, wants to bargain, the price for his silence being Stella herself. Caught between two men and unsure who she can trust, the flimsy structures of Stella's life begin to crumble.

It is wartime London, and the carelessness of people with no future flows through the evening air. Stella discovers that her lover Robert is suspected of selling information to the enemy. Harrison, the British intelligence agent on his trail, wants to bargain, the price for his silence being Stella herself. Caught between two men and unsure who she can trust, the flimsy structures of Stella's life begin to crumble.

A haunting portrayal of love and betrayal in a London hollowed by war.It is wartime London, and the carelessness of people with no future flows through the evening air. Stella discovers that her lover Robert is suspected of selling information to the enemy. Harrison, the British intelligence agent on his trail, wants to bargain, the price for his silence being Stella herself. Caught between two men and unsure who she can trust, the flimsy structures of Stella's life begin to crumble.‘Alive with the erotic tensions of the blackout, the Blitz and the heightened pleasures of sex in the proximity of death’ London Review of BooksWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ROY FOSTERThis series of war novels from Vintage Classics presents eight powerful stories about the horror and waste of war - each a passionate plea to prevent its repetition

Bowen's Court describes the history of one Anglo-Irish family in County Cork from the Cromwellian settlement until 1959, when Elizabeth Bowen was forced to sell the family house she loved. Bowen reviews ten generations of her family, representatives of the Protestant Irish gentry whose lives were dominated by property, lawsuits, formidable matriarchs, violent conflicts, hunting, drinking, and self-destructive fantasies.Seven Winters recalls with endearing candour Bowen's family and her Dublin childhood as seen through the eyes of a child who could not read till she was seven and who fed her imagination only on sights and sounds.

Elizabeth Bowen's account of a time spent in Rome is no ordinary guidebook but an evocation of a city - its history, its architecture and, above all, its atmosphere. She describes the famous classical sites, conjuring from the ruins visions of former inhabitants and their often bloody activities and speculates about the immense noise of ancient Rome, the problems caused by the Romans' dining posture, and the Roman temperament. She evokes the city's moods - by day, when it is characterised by golden sunlight, and at night, when the blaze of the moon 'annihilates history'.

As the smoky dark sweeps across the capital, strange stories emerge from the night. A seance reveals a ghastly secret in the murk of Regent's Canal. From south of the Thames come chilling reports of a spring-heeled spectre, and in Stoke Newington rumours abound of an opening to another world among the quiet alleys.Join Elizabeth Dearnley on this atmospheric tour through a shadowy London, a city which has long inspired writers of the weird and uncanny. Waiting in the hazy streets are eerie tales from Charlotte Riddell, Lettice Galbraith and Violet Hunt, along with haunting pieces by Virginia Woolf, Arthur Machen, Sam Selvon and many more.

In one hardcover volume—the two most popular novels by one of the greatest twentieth-century novelists, whose psychologically rich stories of lost innocence combine sharp humor with a devastating gift for exposing hidden motivationsThe Last September is a portrait of a young woman’s coming-of-age in a brutalized time and place, where the ordinariness of life is shadowed by the impending doom of history. In 1920, at their country home in County Cork, young Lois’s guardian, Sir Richard Naylor, and his family and friends stubbornly carry on with their tennis parties and dances, all while knowing that British rule in Ireland—and with it, their privileged way of life—is about to end.The Death of the Heart, perhaps Bowen’s masterpiece, is a devastating story of adolescent love and the betrayal of innocence. When orphaned sixteen-year-old Portia Quayne arrives in London and falls for Eddie, an attractive and carefree cad, their entanglement threatens to shatter the carefully built illusions of everyone in their politely treacherous social world.Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.

Elizabeth Bowen is widely considered to be one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century. While her novels masquerade as witty comedies of manners, set in the lavish country houses of the Anglo-Irish or in elegant London homes, they mine the depths of private tragedy with a subtle ferocity and psychological complexity reminiscent of Henry James.

Portia Quayne, 16 år och föräldralös, måste flytta till sin halvbror Thomas förmögna hem i London. Han och hustrun Anna är allt annat än förtjusta över att hysa avkomman från den vanärade Quayne den äldres andra äktenskap. Portia möter inte bara känslokyla riktad mot sig: i detta hem tycks alla, såväl värdparet som tjänstefolket, reserverade gentemot varandra. Livet här är strypt av regler, etikett, kontroll, beräkning. Samma gäller för den 23-årige Eddie, som hon inleder ett förhållande med. Portia registrerar allt och dokumenterar sina känslor och intryck i sin dagbok. När Anna Quayne upptäcker dagboken tvingas Portia till ett livsavgörande vägval. Hjärtats död är Elizabeth Bowens mästerverk om mellankrigstidens England, en av milstolparna i engelskspråkig modernism – inkluderad på såväl Time Magazines som Modern Librarys listor över 1900-talets 100 bästa engelskspråkiga romaner. Här i svensk översättning av Viveka Starfelt och med ett nyskrivet efterord av författaren och kritikern Carl-Johan Malmberg. ELIZABETH BOWEN [1899–1973] var en irländsk författare, som i dag räknas till 1900-talets stora namn i den engelska litteraturen. Modernista ger nu ut Älskaren som var demon & andra berättelser [The Demon Lover & Other Stories, 1945] och romanmästerverket Hjärtats död [The Death of the Heart, 1938] i nya svenska utgåvor. »Man avslutar Hjärtats död med den där känslan som litteratur numera så sällan framkallar – att livet på ett mystiskt sätt förstorats.« | The New Yorker »Bowens återhållsamhet, det osagdas kvalitet, ger hennes prosa dess egendomliga täthet och intensitet.« | The New York Times

This selection of Bowen's non-fictional writings includes her wonderfully funny, precise recollections of schooldays and childhood experiences, her brilliant evocations of London in wartime and of the Irish 'big house', and penetrating accounts of some of her most famous contemporaries. It also contains her autobiography, posthumously published and left tantalising unfinished, a little known portrait of a beloved family servant, and unpublished letters to close friends as Virginia Woolf and William Plomer, written with as much elegance and energy as her 'public' writing. In her introduction, Hermoine Lee shows how these writings display the same interests as Elizabeth Bowen's fiction - in Anglo-Irish dispossession and ambivalence, in the persistence of chilhood feelings, in treachery, ghosts, and the mysterious power of place, the lure of nostalgia , and the clash between individual and society.

The Death of the Heart is perhaps Elizabeth Bowen's best-known book. As she deftly and delicately exposes the cruelty that lurks behind the polished surfaces of conventional society, Bowen reveals herself as a masterful novelist who combines a sense of humor with a devastating gift for divining human motivations.In this piercing story of innocence betrayed set in the thirties, the orphaned Portia is stranded in the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home in London.There she encounters the attractive, carefree cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and he fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayal--and sets in motion one of the most moving and desperate flights of the heart in modern literature.

Read Elizabeth Bowen’s accessible feminist take on the Irish aristocracyWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY VICTORIA GLENDINNINGThe Irish troubles rage, but up at the 'Big House', tennis parties, dances and flirtations with the English officers continue, undisturbed by the ambushes, arrests and burning country beyond the gates. Faint vibrations of discord reach the young girl Lois, who is straining for her own freedom, and she will witness the troubles surge closer and reach their irrevocable, inevitable climax.

'One of the best novels about a young woman that I’ve ever read' Greta GerwigWhen sixteen-year-old Portia is orphaned, she is plunged into the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home. There she encounters the attractive cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and he fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayal - and sets in motion one of the most moving and desperate flights of the heart in modern literature.'One of the last century's greatest woman writers' Guardian'This is a stunning portrait of the human heart, a raw account of romantic betrayal and the pains of growing up' Sunday Times **One of the 50 best books of the past 100 years**

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY A. N. WILSONThroughout these seventy-nine stories - love stories, ghost stories, stories of childhood, of English middle-class life in the twenties and thirties, of London during the Blitz - Elizabeth Bowen combines social comedy and reportage, perception and vision in an oeuvre which reveals, as Angus Wilson affirms in his introduction, that 'the instinctive artist is there at the very heart of her work'.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY A.S. BYATTWhen eleven-year-old Henrietta arrives at the Fishers' residence in Paris, little does she know what fascinating secrets the house itself contains. Henrietta finds that her visit coincides with that of Leopold, an intense child who has come to Paris to be introduced to the mother he has never known. In the course of a single day, the mystery surrounding Leopold, his parents, Henrietta's agitated hostess and the dying matriarch in bed upstairs, come to light slowly and tantalisingly.

It's the balmy days of the 1920s and where could be more pleasant for a holiday than a hotel on the Italian Riviera? Filled with prosperous English visitors, the Hotel offers a closed world of wealth and comfort. It also provides the stage for the display of social niceties, for passionate but unspoken love affairs and for the comedy of the shared bathroom. With great wit and insight Elizabeth Bowen's first novel lays bare the intricacies and eccentricities of polite society.

Elizabeth Bowen takes us on a tour through the history of the famous Dublin landmark, the Shelbourne Hotel, in this evocative account of Irish life. Looking out on Dublin as if from the windows of the Shelbourne, and then turning inward to witness the impact of events on the hotel, its guests and staff, Bowen paints a picture of what was, in the hotel's earlier days, the second city of the Empire, then the battleground of Irish independence and civil strife, and eventually the capital of a republic.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY TESSA HADLEYImposing, rich, unloved and with a genius for unreality; Eva Trout has a 'capacity for making trouble, attracting trouble, strewing trouble around her' that is endless. Eva Trout was Elizabeth Bowen's last completed novel, and in it her elegant style, her gift for social comedy and her intense sensibility combine to create one of her most formidable - and moving - heroines.

Cecilia, capricious and unable to love, inches reluctantly towards a second marriage to the kind, passionless Julian Tower. Meanwhile, her sister-in-law, Emmeline, is surprised to find the calm tenor of her life disturbed by her attraction to the predatory Mark Linkwater. Markie's appearance disrupts the lives of both women, but in the pain of misunderstanding, it is Emmeline who reveals her vulnerability in a violent and tragic act.Reissued alongside The Hotel and The Little Girls