{"product_id":"collected-stories-of-elizabeth-bowen-isbn-9781101908181","title":"Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen","description":"\u003cb\u003eA beautiful hardcover edition of the collected short stories of \"one of the best short story writers who ever lived\" (\u003ci\u003eNewsweek)\u003c\/i\u003e—with an introduction by the Booker Prize-winning author of \u003ci\u003eThe Sea\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWidely known for her extraordinary novels, including \u003ci\u003eThe Heat of the Day\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe House in Paris\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Death of the Heart\u003c\/i\u003e, Elizabeth Bowen established herself in the front rank of twentieth-century writers equally through her short fiction. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis collection includes seventy-nine magnificent stories written over the course of four decades, including such beloved classics as “Mysterious Kôr,” “The Demon Lover,” “Summer Night,” “Ivy Gripped the Steps,” and “The Happy Autumn Fields.” Whether placing her reader in a remote Irish castle or a seaside Italian villa or bomb-scarred London during the Blitz, Bowen was famous for scene setting of almost hallucinatory vividness, but her ability to evoke inner landscapes of spellbinding intensity was even more remarkable. Frustrated lovers, acutely observed children, and even vengeful ghosts inhabit her tales with an urgency and emotional complexity that make it clear that the drama of human consciousness was her central subject. These stories are enduring testimony to Bowen’s reputation as a creator of finely chiseled narratives—rich in imagination, psychological insight, and craft—that transcend their time and place.Introduction by John Banville\u003cbr\u003e Selected Bibliography\u003cbr\u003e Chronology\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e FIRST STORIES\u003cbr\u003e Breakfast\u003cbr\u003e Daffodils\u003cbr\u003e The Return\u003cbr\u003e The Confidante\u003cbr\u003e Requiescat\u003cbr\u003e All Saints\u003cbr\u003e The New House\u003cbr\u003e Lunch\u003cbr\u003e The Lover\u003cbr\u003e Mrs Windermere\u003cbr\u003e The Shadowy Third\u003cbr\u003e The Evil that Men Do –\u003cbr\u003e Sunday Evening\u003cbr\u003e Coming Homes\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e THE TWENTIES\u003cbr\u003e Ann Lee’s\u003cbr\u003e The Parrot\u003cbr\u003e The Visitor\u003cbr\u003e The Contessina\u003cbr\u003e Human Habitation\u003cbr\u003e The Secession\u003cbr\u003e Making Arrangements\u003cbr\u003e The Storm\u003cbr\u003e Charity\u003cbr\u003e The Back Drawing-Room\u003cbr\u003e Recent Photograph\u003cbr\u003e Joining Charles\u003cbr\u003e The Jungle\u003cbr\u003e Shoes: An International Episode\u003cbr\u003e The Dancing-Mistress\u003cbr\u003e Aunt Tatty\u003cbr\u003e Dead Mabelle\u003cbr\u003e The Working Party\u003cbr\u003e Foothold\u003cbr\u003e The Cassowary\u003cbr\u003e Telling\u003cbr\u003e Mrs Moysey\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e THE THIRTIES\u003cbr\u003e The Tommy Crans\u003cbr\u003e The Good Girl\u003cbr\u003e The Cat Jumps\u003cbr\u003e The Last Night in the Old Home\u003cbr\u003e The Disinherited\u003cbr\u003e Maria\u003cbr\u003e Her Table Spread\u003cbr\u003e The Little Girl’s Room\u003cbr\u003e Firelight in the Flat\u003cbr\u003e The Man of the Family\u003cbr\u003e The Needlecase\u003cbr\u003e The Apple Tree\u003cbr\u003e Reduced\u003cbr\u003e Tears, Idle Tears\u003cbr\u003e A Walk in the Woods\u003cbr\u003e A Love Story\u003cbr\u003e Look at All Those Roses\u003cbr\u003e Attractive Modern Homes\u003cbr\u003e The Easter Egg Party\u003cbr\u003e Love\u003cbr\u003e No. 16\u003cbr\u003e A Queer Heart\u003cbr\u003e The Girl with the Stoop\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e THE WAR YEARS\u003cbr\u003e Unwelcome Idea\u003cbr\u003e Oh, Madam…\u003cbr\u003e Summer Night\u003cbr\u003e In the Square\u003cbr\u003e Sunday Afternoon\u003cbr\u003e The Inherited Clock\u003cbr\u003e The Cheery Soul\u003cbr\u003e Songs My Father Sang Me\u003cbr\u003e The Demon Lover\u003cbr\u003e Careless Talk\u003cbr\u003e The Happy Autumn Fields\u003cbr\u003e Ivy Gripped the Steps\u003cbr\u003e Pink May\u003cbr\u003e Green Holly\u003cbr\u003e Mysterious Kor\u003cbr\u003e The Dolt’s Tale\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e POST-WAR STORIES\u003cbr\u003e I Hear You Say So\u003cbr\u003e Gone Away\u003cbr\u003e Hand in Glove\u003cbr\u003e A Day in the Dark\"Quite simply one of the best short story writers who ever lived.\" —\u003ci\u003eNewsweek\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Bowen's  stories show the awesome capabilities of the English language and the surprise and  mystery of the human soul.\" —\u003ci\u003eThe New Republic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Bowen's stories are novels  that have been split open like rocks and reveal the glitter of the naked crystals  which have formed them.\" —\u003ci\u003eVogue\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Richly reconfirms the extraordinary  contribution Elizabeth Bowen has made to English letters.\" —\u003ci\u003eThe New  York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cp\u003eElizabeth Bowen was born in Dublin in 1899. She wrote many acclaimed short stories and novels, including \u003ci\u003eThe Heat of the Day, The Death of the Heart, The Last September, \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e Eva Trout\u003c\/i\u003e. She was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1948. She died in 1973.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJOHN BANVILLE, author of seventeen novels, has been the recipient of the Man Booker Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Guardian Fiction Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, and the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. He lives in Dublin.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBreakfast\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'BEHOLD, I die daily,' thought Mr Rossiter, entering the breakfast-room.  He saw the family in silhouette against the windows; the windows looked out into  a garden closed darkly in upon by walls. There were so many of the family it seemed  as though they must have multiplied during the night; their flesh gleamed pinkly  in the cold northern light and they were always moving. Often, like the weary shepherd,  he could have prayed them to keep still that he might count them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey turned at  his entrance profiles and three-quarter faces towards him. There was a silence of  suspended munching and little bulges of food were thrust into their cheeks that they  might wish him perfunctory good-mornings.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMiss Emily further inquired whether he  had slept well, with a little vivacious uptilt of her chin. Her voice was muffled:  he gathered that the contents of her mouth was bacon, because she was engaged in  sopping up the liquid fat from her plate with little dice of bread, which she pushed  around briskly with a circular movement of her fork. It was not worth sitting down  till she had finished, because he would be expected to take her plate away. Why was  the only empty chair always beside Miss Emily?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLast night in the lamplight he had  almost begun to think he liked Miss Emily. She was the only lady present who had  not beaten time with hand or foot or jerking head while they played 'Toreador Song'  on the gramophone. But here, pressed in upon her by the thick fumes of coffee and  bacon, the doggy-smelling carpet, the tight, glazed noses of the family ready to  split loudly from their skins. . . . There was contamination in the very warm edge  of her plate, as he took it from her with averted head and clattered it down among  the others on the sideboard.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Bacon?' insinuated Mrs Russel. 'A little chilly, I'm  afraid. I do hope there's plenty, but we early birds are sometimes inclined to be  rather ravenous.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe added: 'There's an egg,' but there was no invitation in her  tone.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe could never leave a phrase unmodified. He could have answered with facetious  emphasis that he was almost inclined to believe he would rather have enjoyed that  egg.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDumbly, he took two rashers of the moist and mottled bacon.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'And then,' Hilary  Bevel was recounting, 'it all changed, and we were moving very quickly through a  kind of pinkish mist--running, it felt like, only all my legs and arms were somewhere  else. That was the time when you came into it, Aunt Willoughby. You were winding  up your sewing machine like a motor car, kneeling down, in a sort of bunching bathing  dress. . . .' She dared indelicacy, reaching out for the marmalade with a little  agitated rustle to break up the silence with which her night's amazing experiences  had been received.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMiss Emily, always kindly, tittered into her cup. She kicked  the leg of Rossiter's chair and apologized; and he watched her thin, sharp shoulders  shining through her blouse.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMrs Russel's eye travelled slowly round the table; there  slowed and ceased the rotatory mastication of her jaws. Above her head was a square  of white light reflected across from the window to the overmantel. He wished that  the sheen of the tablecloth were snow, and that he could heap it over his head as  that eye came round towards him.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Now for it,' he braced himself, clenching his  hands upon his knife and fork, and squaring his elbows till one touched Miss Emily,  who quivered.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'I'm afraid you couldn't hardly have heard the gong this morning,  Mr Rossiter. That new girl doesn't hardly know how to make it sound yet. She seems  to me just to give it a sort of rattle.'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDamn her impudence. She censored him for  being late.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Oh, I--I heard it, thank you!'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey had all stopped talking, and ate  quite quietly to hear him speak. Only Jervis Bevel drained his coffee-cup with a  gulp and gurgle.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'The fact is, I was--er--looking for my collar-stud.'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Ah, yes.  I'm afraid you've sometimes been a little reckless about buying new ones before you  were quite sure you'd lost the others, haven't you, Mr Rossiter? Only fancy,'--she  looked round to collect the attention of the breakfasters; there was a sensation  to follow--'Annie found three good ones, really good ones, under the wardrobe, when  she was turning out your room.'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'I can't think how they get there,' he protested,  conscious of inanity.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Perhaps they took little legs unto themselves and walked,'  suggested Hilary Bevel.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Perhaps the wardrobe got up in the night and sat on top  of them,' bettered Miss Emily.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere was a rustle of laughter, and she cast down  her eyes with a deprecatory titter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe remark was a success. It was really funny.  It was received by Mrs Russel with a warm benignity: 'Really, Emily, you do say silly  things.' She laughed her gentle breathy laugh, gazing at Mr Rossiter, who wriggled.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'I say--er--Bevel, when you've finished with that newspaper--'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJervis Bevel looked  insolently at him over the top of the paper.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Sorry, I've only just begun. I left  it lying on your plate some time, then I didn't think you'd have much time to read  it, being rather rushed.'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRossiter hated Bevel, with his sleek head. He was not  aware that he was rushed. What business had Bevel got to tell him so?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Well, when  you have finished--'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHilary Bevel was staring at him across the table as though  she had never seen him before. She had eyebrows like her brother's, owl's eyebrows,  and long-lidded, slanting eyes; and affected a childish directness and ingenuousness  of speech which she considered attractive. Her scarlet, loose-lipped mouth curled  itself round her utterances, making them doubly distinct.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Mr Rossiter's got another  tie on, a crimson tie!' said Hilary Bevel.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRossiter was instantly aware, not only  of his tie but of his whole body visible above the table-edge. He felt his ears protruding  fanwise from his head, felt them redden, and the blush burn slowly across his cheekbones,  down his pricking skin to the tip of his nose.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMrs Russel's attention was temporarily  directed from himself by a skirmish with Aunt Willoughby. The click of swords was  audible to all.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Oh, but you wouldn't, Aunt Willoughby. Not when they've got five  or six rooms to settle up every day, you wouldn't. You see, with you, when poor uncle  was alive, it was a different thing altogether. What I mean to say is, in proportion  to the size of the family you had more of them, in a kind of way. It was a larger  staff.'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Ah then, Rosie, but what I always used to say, \"You do what I expect of  you and we won't expect any more than that. I'm reasonable,\" I used to say, \"I won't  expect any more than that.\" Annie could tell you that was what I used to say to her.  As my dear husband used to say,' Aunt Willoughby raised her voice, anticipating an  interruption, 'there are those that can get good work out of their servants and those  that can't. We mustn't be set up about it; it's just a gift, like other gifts, that  many haven't got. I've had such a happy, happy home,' she sighed towards the attentive  Miss Emily. 'Always so comfortable, it was.'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Annie is a funny girl,' reflected  Mrs Russel; she said to me--of course I never take the things those girls say seriously--\"I  wouldn't go back to Mrs Willoughby not for anything you might give me, I wouldn't.\"  I said, \"But she spoke so well of you, Annie,\" and she just wagged her head at me,  sort of. She is a funny girl! Of course, I didn't ought to tell you, but it made  me laugh at the time, it did really.'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'I came down on her rather hard,' admitted  Aunt Willoughby swiftly. 'I was so particular, you see, and she had some dirty ways.  Now I shouldn't wonder--when was it you lost those collar-studs, Mr Rossiter?'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'I  don't exactly remember,' said Rossiter, basely. He felt Mrs Russel's approval warm  upon him, but was sorry to have failed Aunt Willoughby, who, disconcerted, relapsed  into irrelevancy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMiss Emily harked back.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Oh, Hilary, you are awful--why shouldn't  he?'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Well, I didn't say he shouldn't, I simply said it was one. They'll be jealous  of you at the office, won't they, Mr Rossiter?'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMr Rossiter, eyeing her contemplatively,  supposed that Miss Bevel was a 'merry' girl.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'It may mean an occasion for Mr Rossiter,'  said Mrs Russel from her Olympia behind the urn. 'You shouldn't draw attention to  it, girls.'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe light glanced on Hilary's waved and burnished hair as she turned  her head towards Aunt Willoughby.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Nobody takes any notice of little me, when I  go gadding, do they, Auntie! Why, it's all round the table in a minute if I come  down with half an inch of new coloured cammie-ribbon sticking out above my jumper!'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'You wouldn't put it in at all if you didn't think it was going to notice,' remarked  her brother, without raising his eyes from the \u003ci\u003eDaily Express\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'I wouldn't put on  anything at all if I was quite invisible, if that's what you mean!'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMiss Emily glanced  apprehensively at the unshaken barricade of newspaper.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Oh, Hilary, you are awf--'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJervis had apparently not heard.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Hilary!' said Mrs Russel, 'I'm afraid you're  shocking Mr Rossiter!' She lingered on the name as though he were something delicious  to eat.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'I believe,' thought Rossiter, 'they all want to marry me! Is this insight  or delirium? P'raps not Aunt Willoughby, but--'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe appraised Jervis round the edge  of the newspaper. Surely he was showier, mote attractive? Why couldn't he divert  some of their attentions; take on, say, Miss Emily and Mrs Russel? Mrs Russel was  old enough to be the mother of either of them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA hand shot out suddenly from behind  the urn. Rossiter jumped.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'--had your second cup of coffee yet,' Mrs Russel was  saying. 'You look quite poetic, Mr Rossiter'--she was referring to his abstracted  glare--'Aren't you going to pass along your cup?'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Thank you--half a cup, if you  please.'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'There's no hurry.' She glanced over her shoulder at the round relentless  clock--face on the mantel. 'You see, you eat rather faster than the others, Mr Rossiter,  though they have had a bit of a start this morning!'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDid he really bolt his food  and make, perhaps, disgusting noises with his mouth?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'That's why I always say we'd  rather breakfast early--all of us, even the ones who haven't necessarily got to rush.  It's so much homier, one feels, than rough-and-tumble modern breakfast nowadays.  Everybody sort of rushing in and scrambling and snatching and making grabs at things  off a table at the side. There's nothing so homely,' said Mrs Russel with conscious  brilliance, 'as a comfortable sit-down family to breakfast.'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'My God!' said Jervis  irritably, 'there's going to be another strike on that damned railway--they're cutting  down the trains again. Why pretend railways are a convenience--that's what I should  like to know?'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNo one could tell him.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe pushed his chair back from the table,  impatiently, and crossed his legs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Pore old thing, then,' trilled Hilary. 'Diddums  wazzums cwoss.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'They're not taking off the eight-forty-seven, are they?'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Not the  eight-forty-seven?'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'They are. That means either the eight--twenty-seven or the  eight-fifty-three. The eight-fifty-three!'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'The eight-twenty-seven,' they decided  unanimously.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Then that'll just have to mean breakfast earlier,' said Mrs Russel  brightly; 'you won't mind, will you, girls?' Her appeal included Aunt Willoughby,  who made no response. 'You see, we couldn't hardly rush them over their breakfasts,  could we?'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis was 'home comforts.' This was one of the privileges for which Rossiter  paid her twenty-four shillings a week. Being sat round and watched while you were  eating. Not being rushed. He had a vision of a 'rushed breakfast,' of whirling endlessly  through space while one snapped at a sausage with little furtive bites; of munching  bread and marmalade with the wind of one's velocity whistling through one's teeth.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWould it be better? Could it be worse?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNot worse than his chair-edge creaking against  Miss Emily's; the unceasing consciousness of her unceasing consciousness of him.  Not worse than Hilary Bevel, viv-a-vis; with her complacent prettiness, her tinkling,  laboured witticisms. Not worse than Aunt Willoughby's baffled, bearded morosity;  than Jervis Bevel's sleek disdain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe would escape from Mrs Russel, her advances,  her criticisms, her fumbling arguments that crushed you down beneath their heavy  gentleness until you felt you were being trampled to death by a cow. By a blind cow,  that fumbled its way backwards and forwards across you . . .\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe 'girls' delivered  their ultimatum in chorus.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'England expects,' declaimed Hilary, turning her eyes  towards the ceiling, 'effery woman to-er--do-er herr dew-ty.'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'It's nice to be down  early,' said Miss Emily earnestly, 'with a nice long day stretching out in front  of me.'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Breakfast will be at quarter to eight sharp,' said Mrs Russel. 'Mr Rossiter,  we really must try not to lose our collar-studs.'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAll his days and nights were loops,  curving out from breakfast time, curving back to it again. Inexorably the loops grew  smaller, the breakfasts longer; looming more and more over his nights, eating more  and more out of his days.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJervis Bevel's eyes swerved over to the mantelpiece. He  pushed his chair back farther over the bristling carpet pile.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Well,' he said, 'I  think it's almost time--'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe room broke up, the table grew smaller again as they  all rose from their chairs. Mrs Russel and Aunt Willoughby gathered themselves together;  Hilary seized Miss Emily by the back of the waist and punted her laughingly towards  the door.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe coffee and the bacon and the hostility and the christian forbearance  blew out before them into the chilly hall.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Everyman's Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304091701477,"sku":"NP9781101908181","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781101908181.jpg?v=1767723910","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/collected-stories-of-elizabeth-bowen-isbn-9781101908181","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}