Product Description

Widely known for her much-admired novels, including The Heat of the Day, The House in Paris, and The Death of the Heart, Elizabeth Bowen established herself in the front rank of the century's writers equally through her short fiction.

This collection brings together seventy-nine magnificent stories written over the course of four decades. Vividly featuring scenes of bomb-scarred London during the Blitz, frustrated lovers, acutely obcerved children, and even vengeful ghosts, these stories reinforce Bowen's reputation as an artist whose finely chiseled narratives—rich in imagination, psychological insight, and craft—transcend their time and place.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #696476 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-08
• Released on: 2006-08-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 784 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781400096565
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Scientific American
Elizabeth Bowen . . . was from the start . . . a highly conscious artist. Being alive as she was in a world of change affected her passionately. The nature and workings of human emotions magnetized her imagination; with all her artist mind she set forth to comprehend, and thus capture, human motives--men's, women's and children's.

Review
She belongs to the great tradition of English moral comedy going back to Jane Austen, stopping off at Henry James, with some of the aromas of Proust, a writer she greatly admired. -- The New York Times Book Review, Howard Moss

Review
"Quite simply one of the best short story writers who ever lived." —Newsweek

"Bowen's stories show the awesome capabilities of the English language and the surprise and mystery of the human soul." —Anne Tyler, The New Republic

"Bowen's stories are novels that have been split open like rocks and reveal the glitter of the naked crystals which have formed them." —V.S. Pritchett, Vogue

"Richly reconfirms the extraordinary contribution Elizabeth Bowen has made to English letters." —Eudora Welty, The New York Times Book Review

Customer Reviews

have a glass of sherry, come rest in the lounge
elizabeth bowen's stories are well crafted. reading them (for me... i was born in 1974) is like peeking into the drawing room of a time long gone and now crystallised on the page. i gave the book 4 stars instead of five, because while some of the stories are real gems, others fell flat to me. this was my first experience with her work, and 760 odd pages of short stories was a lot of stories!

i would recommend, unless you just want to read a few stories at a time, (the book is broken up into decades and then pre and post war sections)or you are already a huge fan, to start out with a smaller collection of her work. then again, why not pay a few extra dollars and get them all at once?

i escpecially recommend the stories of the twenties and thirties, they really are delightful... the ghosts and murderessess inhabiting some of them are intriguing, there's a flavour to her work you simply don't find in newer fiction. reading her work was like entering another time zone, quite interesting stuff!