Elizabeth Bowen

"A novel of Ireland in the Nineteen-Twenties"--Cover.

Collection of essays containing a number of book prefaces, book reviews, articles on plays, pictures and places, and other miscellaneous papers.

This collection, which represents Elizabeth Bowen's last book, includes an unfinished autobiography, the beginnings of a novel, an essay, a nativity play, and 'Notes on writing a novel'.

A young woman’s secret love affair leads to a violent and tragic act in one of Elizabeth Bowen’s most acclaimed novels. To the North centers on two young women in 1920s London, the recently widowed Cecilia Summers and her late husband's sister, Emmeline. Drawn to each other in the wake of their loss, the two set up house together and gradually become more entwined than they know. But the comfortable refuge they have made is "a house built on sand"; both realize it cannot last. While Cecilia, capricious and unsure if she can really love anyone, moves reluctantly toward a second marriage, Emmeline, a gentle and independent soul, is surprised to find the calm tenor of her life disturbed for the first time by her attraction to the predatory Mark Linkwater. Bowen’s psychological acuity is on full display in a conclusion that plumbs the depths of this seemingly detached young woman in a single, life-shattering moment.

When her beloved brother incurs a disastrous gambling debt, lovely Carmella knows that his reckless plan offers their only hope of escaping disgrace. But does their host, the formidable Marquis of Ingleton, really believe her to be a worldly Society beauty? Or does this disturbingly handsome man suspect the terrifying shame that Carmella must risk?

The lament ; A trifling occurrence ; The lady with the dog ; Ward no. 6 / Anton Chekhov -- The demon lover ; The Tommy Crans ; All saints ; The shadowy third / Elizabeth Bowen -- Four meetings ; The beast in the jungle ; The real thing ; The pupil / Henry James -- The miser ; Eternal triangle ; Masculine protest ; The holy door / Frank O'Connor -- The blind man ; The rocking-horse winner ; The woman who rode away / D.H. Lawrence -- The maid's shoes ; Angel Levine ; Naked nude ; The prison / Bernard Malamud -- Caleb and me ; Previous condition ; The rockpile / James Baldwin -- [Masque of the Red Death]( / Edgar Allan Poe -- [The minister's black veil]( / Nathaniel Hawthorne -- My landlady / Guy de Maupassant -- [The boarding house]( / James Joyce -- The circular ruins / Jorge Luis Borges -- The artificial nigger / Flannery O'Connor -- The engagement party / Robert Boles.

Rip Van Winkle / Washington Irving [Young Goodman Brown]( / Nathaniel Hawthorne [Fall of the House of Usher]( / Edgar Allan Poe The lightning-rod man / Herman Melville The diamond lens / Fitzjames O'Brien The celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County / Mark Twain The outcasts of Poker Flat / Bret Harte [Damned Thing]( / Ambrose Bierce The turn of the screw / Henry James The Hiltons' holiday / Sarah Orne Jewett The gift of the Magi / O. Henry The moving finger / Edith Wharton The open boat / Stephen Crane Lou, the prophet / Willa Cather The men of Forty Mile / Jack London Babylon revisited / F. Scott Fitzgerald [A rose for Emily]( William Faulkner Big two-hearted river / Ernest Hemingway Flight / John Steinbeck

Side bet / Will F. Jenkins -- "Happy birthday, dear Alexa" / John Keir Cross -- The tombling day / Ray Bradbury -- Head man / Robert Bloch -- The demon lover / Elizabeth Bowen -- The shuttered room / H.P. Lovecraft -- Dark dream / Elizabeth Fancett -- Two spinsters / E. Phillips Oppenheim -- [Way up to Heaven]( / Roald Dahl.