Elizabeth Bowen

[Fried Egg]

In the introduction to the Robert Aickman collection I am currently reading ("Tales of Love and Death"), Michael Dirda said:

"Along with Walter de la Mare, Elizabeth Bowen and a few others, Robert Aickman belongs to the Chekhov school of the weird tale. Such writers recognise that stories don’t require pat endings. They don’t need to close with the snap of an O. Henry trapdoor, or the ironic twist of a Maupassant. A short story can actually convey a more haunting depiction of the human predicament by avoiding any kind of artificial conclusiveness. Life is messy, not neat; most problems are never clearly resolved, but only lived with; people act unreasonably for no apparent reason."

So naturally any other writers said to be in the same "school" as Aickman I am curious about. Has anyone here read any Elizabeth Bowen and would they recommend her work? Where would be a good place to start?

 

[GOLLUM]

I have the collected stories of Elizabeth Bowen, published by Vintage.

To my knowledge it contains most (if not all) of her short stories which Yes include ghost stories but also include stories of love, children, descriptions of London life during the blitz (which she is particularly admired for), observations of the Englsih middle class in the 20s and 30s etc... in other words Bowen wrote widely and her ghost stories are only one part of her entire ouevre

Having said this I coincidentally only purchased this volume a few months back and have not had a chance to read it yet. I bought it on the basis of Bowen's reputation as one of the finest English (she was actually Irish born) short story writers of the 20th Century (she also wrote some well regarded novels). I had no clear concept of her being particularly well regarded (I mean singularly famous) for her ghost stories, which she clearly did write. Whether you can get just her collected ghost stories separately to this publication I couldn't say.

I realise this only partially answers your question and because I doubt I will get anywhere near to reading this volume this year, hopefully others here will post further on this topic or you may wish to purchase this 'Collected Stories' of Elizabeth Bowen which comes at a very affordable price.

Cheers.

 

[Randy M.]

I haven't read all of her collected stories, and I don't think I've gotten to all of her ghost stories, either. But by all means read "Mysterious Kor," "The Happy Autumn Fields" and "The Demon Lover." "The Cat Jumps" takes a comic turn, but is also very good.

These are all worth your time and effort to unearth. If you have any collections of older "classic" ghost stories, you're likely to find one of these inside.


Randy M.