The Selected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen: Selected and Introduced by Tessa Hadley

by Elizabeth Bowen

'Bowen's stories are novels that have been split open like rocks and reveal the glitter of the naked crystals which have formed them' VogueSELECTED AND WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY TESSA HADLEYA 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.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1946

About the author

Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen, CBE was an Anglo-Irish novelist and short story writer and short story writer notable for her books about the "big house" of Irish landed Protestants as well her fiction about life in wartime London.

Reviews

[Baz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than Woolf? Tessa Hadley thinks so.

With twenty-one short stories, selected from all seven of Bowen’s story collections, this book took me close on three weeks to read.

I had an uneven experience. I loved the stories from her later collections, and appreciated but didn’t connect as strongly with some of her earlier ones. Not because I thought they weren’t as good, but simply because they featured children as their main characters, and as I’ve said before I’m definitely more into reading about adults – we’re more fucked up and mysterious. I’m not against books about youth, and young people, in fact there are many that I love – but compared to Bowen’s later, darker, adult-world stories, they weren’t anywhere near as thrilling to me.

Bowen’s language is dense, and her stories rich and complicated, in the sense that meaning is made on multiple levels. Tessa Hadley in the intro describes her love for the “thickness of her (Bowen’s) detail and its coloured, textured specificity”, and “the chunky solidity of her words, and her difficult word order”, which puts up “a resistance to any easy reading.”

I found the language to be a bit of a thicket if I wasn’t entirely seduced by a story, but a breeze when I was. I remember reading her novel The Death of the Heart. The prose was sophisticated, stylish, and similarly heavy but also stunning. I loved it, and The Death of the Heart has stayed vivid in my memory because it’s probably one of my all-time favourite novels. Quite a few of the stories featured in this book were also five star, deeply atmospheric, show-stoppers.

[Samuel Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't love all of these, but I did love many of them: "The Return," "Ann Lee's," "The Parrot," "Joining Charles," "The Last Night in the Old Home," "The Man of the Family," "The Needlecase," "Reduced," "Ivy Gripped the Steps," "Mysterious Kôr," "The Demon Lover"

[Hester · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bowen is first and foremost a short story writer and these are among her best. A gem of a collection

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just painfully, beautifully sharp. Bowen captures so elegantly the anguish of being human. (And of being a creepy child.)

[Sam Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intimations of terror held at bay by varying degrees of shabby gentility.

[Aniek Verheul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely stories. Bowen is so good at capturing a melancholy, reflective spirit. Her writing is stunning, but does require careful attention - I wouldn't classify her short fiction as light reading at all, and I found that reading several of these in one sitting was a bit too intense - and leaves much to think about. No particular standouts, either good or bad: just a very solid collection!

[Emma Bosch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una senyora molt fosca

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*

[Paul Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars is perhaps a little mean but at times I did struggle with some of the stories; some of which I found rather uninspiring.

[Jeff Hobbs]

Read so far:

from Encounters (1923):
The return --
***
*Coming home --

from Ann Lee's and Other Stories (1926):
Ann Lee's --
The parrot --
The visitor --
Charity --

from Joining Charles and Other Stories (1929):
Joining Charles --3
The jungle --
*The dancing-mistress --
***
Telling --3

from The Cat Jumps and Other Stories (1934):
*The disinherited --
*The last night in the old house --
Her table spread --2
The man of the family --
*The needlecase --
***
The Tommy Crans --2
The cat jumps --2
*The apple tree --

from Look at All Those Roses (1941):
*Tears, idle tears --
*The Easter egg party --
*Reduced --
Summer night --1
***
A walk in the woods --2
*A love story: 1939 --
*Look at all those roses --
*A queer heart --

from The Demon Lover and Other Stories (1945):
*Ivy gripped the steps --
Mysterious Kor --2
The demon lover --3
***
*Sunday afternoon --
The cheery soul --3
*Songs my father sang me --
The happy autumn fields --1
*Pink May --
Green holly --2

from A Day in the Dark and Other Stories (1965):
*A day in the dark --
***
*Hand in glove --

***
Just imagine...--2
Number 16
On not rising to the occasion