Description
Book Synopsis'Bowen's stories are novels that have been split open like rocks and reveal the glitter of the naked crystals which have formed them' Vogue
SELECTED AND WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY TESSA HADLEY
A girl shares her secret den. A couple stroll through a ruined city. A man walks into a ladies' hat shop. A teacher dreams of killing her pupil.
Spanning the 1920s to the post-war years, this new selection brings Elizabeth Bowen's finest short stories together for the first time. Elegant and subtle, they showcase Bowen's ability to evoke ineffable emotions - grief, nostalgia, self-consciousness, dread - and combine remarkable psychological insight with vivid settings, from the countryside of Bowen's native Ireland to the streets of her London home after the Blitz.
Encompassing characters from many walks of life and a vast array of moods, these are intricate journeys of domesticity and discovery, of the homely and uncanny, of the mind and body.
Trade ReviewBowen's stories show the awesome capabilities of the English language and the surprise and mystery of the human soul * Anne Tyler *
Bowen's stories are novels that have been split open like rocks and reveal the glitter of the naked crystals which have formed them * Vogue *
Like Woolf, like Spark, her language is clear but her effects complex, creating shimmering reflections of reality, her world recognisable but just out of reach * Guardian *
[Bowen's] fiction's uniqueness lies in its versatile, modern understanding of place as 'inner landscape'... [an] astute selection of the short stories... [Brown] write[s] fiction with the texture of history * London Review of Books *
