Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen (7 June 1899 – 22 February 1973) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and short story writer. She was born in Dublin and later brought to Bowen’s Court, near Kildorrery in County Cork, where she spent her summers. Her mother died in 1912 and she was brought up by her aunts in England. Bowen inherited Bowen’s Court in 1930, but remained based in England, frequently visiting Ireland. Her husband retired in 1952 and they settled in Bowen’s Court, where he died. For years, Bowen struggled to keep the house going, lecturing in the United States to earn money. In 1959, the house was sold and demolished, leaving her without a permanent home for the remainder of her life. She died of cancer in 1973, aged 73. She is buried, with her husband, in Farrahy churchyard near Kildorrery, close to the gates of Bowen’s Court.
She was awarded a CBE in 1948 and was a member of the Irish Academy of Letters.
Her works include:
Novels
The Hotel; The Last September; Friends and Relations; To the North; The House in Paris; The Death of the Heart;The Heat of the Day; A World of Love; The Little Girls; Eva Trout.
Short Stories
Encounters; Ann Lee’s and Other Stories; Joining Charles and Other Stories;
The Cat Jumps and Other Stories; Look At All Those Roses; The Demon Lover and Other Stories; Ivy Gripped the Steps and Other Stories; Stories by Elizabeth Bowen;
A Day in the Dark and Other Stories; Elizabeth Bowen’s Irish Stories;
The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen.
Non Fiction Works
Bowen’s Court; Seven Winters: Memories of a Dublin Childhood; English Novelists;
Anthony Trollope: A New Judgement; “Why Do I Write? an Exchange of Views between Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene and V.S. Pritchett”; Collected Impressions; The Shelbourne; A Time in Rome; Afterthought —Pieces About Writing.