Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen CBE (pronounced BOH-ən; June 7, 1899 – February 22, 1973) was an Anglo-Irish writer and short story author known for her books about the large homes of Irish Protestant landowners and her stories about life in London during wartime.

In 1958, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature by Roman Jakobson, a Russian-American linguist.

Life

Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen was born on June 7, 1899, in Dublin, Ireland, at 15 Herbert Place. Her father was Henry Charles Cole Bowen (1862–1930), a barrister who became the head of his family, which had been part of the Irish gentry since the late 1500s. His family had Welsh origins. Her mother was Florence Isabella Pomeroy (died 1912), the daughter of Henry FitzGeorge Pomeroy Colley of Mount Temple, Clontarf, Dublin. Florence’s mother was the granddaughter of the 4th Viscount Powerscourt. Elizabeth was baptized at St Stephen’s Church on Upper Mount Street. Later, her parents moved her to Bowen’s Court, a family home near Kildorrery, County Cork, where she spent her summers. She had lasting friendships with artists Mainie Jellett and Sylvia Cooke-Collis.

In 1907, Elizabeth’s father became mentally ill, so she and her mother moved to England and eventually settled in Hythe. After her mother died in September 1912, Elizabeth was raised by her aunts. Her father remarried in 1918. She attended Downe House School, led by Olive Willis. After studying art in London, she decided writing was her true talent. She became friends with members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Rose Macaulay, who helped her publish her first book, Encounters (1923), a collection of short stories.

In 1923, Elizabeth married Alan Cameron, an educational administrator who later worked for the BBC. Their marriage was described as “sexless but contented” and reportedly never consummated. Elizabeth had relationships outside her marriage, including one with Charles Ritchie, a Canadian diplomat 7 years her junior, which lasted over 30 years. She also had an affair with the Irish writer Seán Ó Faoláin and a relationship with the American poet May Sarton.

Elizabeth and Alan lived near Oxford, where they met writers like Maurice Bowra, John Buchan, and Susan Buchan. She wrote her early novels, including The Last September (1929), there. After publishing To the North (1932), they moved to 2 Clarence Terrace, Regent’s Park, London, where she wrote The House in Paris (1936) and The Death of the Heart (1938). In 1937, she became a member of the Irish Academy of Letters.

In 1930, Elizabeth became the first and only woman to inherit Bowen’s Court, though she lived in England and visited Ireland often. During World War II, she worked for the British Ministry of Information, reporting on Irish opinions, especially about neutrality. Her political views were close to Burkean conservatism. She wrote about wartime London in The Demon Lover and Other Stories (1945) and The Heat of the Day (1948), which were praised for capturing the atmosphere of that time. Anthony Burgess wrote that The Heat of the Day “better captured the atmosphere of London during the Second World War” than any other novel.

In 1948, Elizabeth was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire). Her husband retired in 1952, and they moved to Bowen’s Court, where he died months later. Many writers visited her there, including Virginia Woolf, Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, Iris Murdoch, and historian Veronica Wedgwood. For years, Elizabeth struggled to keep the house, giving lectures in the United States to earn money.

In 1957, her friend Patrick Hennessy painted her portrait at Bowen’s Court. In 1958, she traveled to Italy to research A Time in Rome (1960), but by 1959, she had to sell Bowen’s Court, which was later demolished in 1960. That same year, she wrote the documentary Ireland the Tear and the Smile for CBS, presented by Walter Cronkite. After years without a home, she settled in “Carbery,” Church Hill, Hythe, in 1965.

Her final novel, Eva Trout, or Changing Scenes (1968), won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1969 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1970. She later judged the 1972 Man Booker Prize alongside her friend Cyril Connolly, awarding it to John Berger for G. In 1972, she spent Christmas in Kinsale, County Cork, with friends, but was hospitalized afterward. She was visited by Connolly, Lady Ursula Vernon, Isaiah Berlin, Rosamund Lehmann, Charles Ritchie, and her literary agent Spencer Curtis Brown.

In 1972, Elizabeth developed lung cancer. She died on February 22, 1973, at University College Hospital, aged 73. She is buried with her husband in St Colman’s churchyard in Farahy, near Bowen’s Court. A memorial plaque at St Colman’s Church, quoting John Sparrow, honors her life, and an annual commemoration is held there.

Legacy

In 1977, Victoria Glendinning wrote the first biography about Elizabeth Bowen. In 2009, Glendinning published a book called Love's Civil War, which includes letters Bowen wrote to Charles Ritche during their relationship and parts from Ritche's diary. In 2012, English Heritage placed a blue plaque at Bowen's home in Regent's Park, Clarence Terrace. On October 19, 2014, another blue plaque was placed at the Coach House, The Croft, Headington, to recognize Bowen's home there from 1925 to 1935.

Fiction

Bowen was interested in the contrast between the calm, orderly life and the powerful changes that eventually occur. She explored how people act when their lives are disrupted and the hidden betrayals and secrets that exist beneath the surface of what seems to be a respectable life. Her writing style is complex and was influenced by modernist literature.

Bowen admired movies and was inspired by the filmmaking methods of her time. The settings in her stories often greatly affect the characters' emotions and the development of the plot. Her war novel The Heat of the Day (1949) is widely regarded as one of the most accurate portrayals of London's atmosphere during the bombings of World War II.

Selected works

• The Hotel (1927)
• The Last September (1929)
• Friends and Relations (1931)
• To the North (1932)
• The House in Paris (1935)
• The Death of the Heart (1938)
• The Heat of the Day (1949)
• A World of Love (1955)
• The Little Girls (1964)
• Eva Trout (1968)

• Encounters (1923)
• Ann Lee's and Other Stories (1926)
• Joining Charles and Other Stories (1929)
• The Cat Jumps and Other Stories (1934)
• Look at All Those Roses (1941)
• The Demon Lover and Other Stories (1945)
• Ivy Gripped the Steps and Other Stories (1946, USA)
• Stories by Elizabeth Bowen (1959)
• A Day in the Dark and Other Stories (1965)
• The Good Tiger (1965, children's book) – illustrated by M. Nebel (1965 edition) and Quentin Blake (1970 edition)
• Elizabeth Bowen's Irish Stories (1978)
• The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen (1980)
• The Bazaar and Other Stories (2008) – edited by Allan Hepburn
• Collected Stories (2019)

• Bowen's Court (1942, 1964)
• Seven Winters: Memories of a Dublin Childhood (1942)
• English Novelists (1942)
• Anthony Trollope: A New Judgement (1946)
• Why Do I Write?: An Exchange of Views between Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene and V.S. Pritchett (1948)
• Collected Impressions (1950)
• The Shelbourne (1951)
• A Time in Rome (1960)
• Afterthought: Pieces About Writing (1962)
• Pictures and Conversations (1975), edited by Spencer Curtis Brown
• The Mulberry Tree: Writings of Elizabeth Bowen (1999), edited by Hermione Lee
• "Notes on Éire": Espionage Reports to Winston Churchill by Elizabeth Bowen, 1940–1942 (20

Television and film adaptations

• The House in Paris (BBC, 1959) featuring Pamela Brown, Trader Faulkner, Clare Austin, and Vivienne Bennett
• The Death of the Heart (produced in 1987) featuring Patricia Hodge, Nigel Havers, Robert Hardy, Phyllis Calvert, Wendy Hiller, and Miranda Richardson
• The Heat of the Day (produced by Granada Television in 1989) featuring Patricia Hodge, Michael Gambon, Michael York, Peggy Ashcroft, and Imelda Staunton
• The Last September (produced in 1999) featuring Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Fiona Shaw, Jane Birkin, Lambert Wilson, David Tennant, Richard Roxburgh, and Keeley Hawes