Showing results by author "Elizabeth Bowen" in All Categories

The Irish Classics Collection is a wide-ranging collection of 10 classic works of fiction and poetry by Irish authors, read by an award-winning cast of narrators. Included here are stories by some of the greatest writers of all time, including James Joyce; Bram Stoker; Oscar Wilde; W.B. Yeats; Elizabeth Bowen; and more.

One of Elizabeth Bowen's most artful and psychologically acute novels, The House in Paris is a timeless masterpiece of nuance and atmosphere, and represents the very best of Bowen's celebrated oeuvre. When eleven-year-old Henrietta arrives at the Fishers' well-appointed house in Paris, she is prepared to spend her day between trains looked after by an old friend of her grandmother's. Henrietta longs to see a few sights in the foreign city; little does she know what fascinating secrets the Fisher house itself contains.

The Definitive Sci-Fi Collection is a collection of 28 classic science fiction novels and stories, read by an esteemed cast of award-winning narrators. Included here are stories by some of the most iconic science fiction writers of all time, including H.G. Wells; Jules Verne; H.P. Lovecraft; Margaret Cavendish; Yevgeny Zamyatin; and more.

The Last September is set in Ireland during the Irish War of Independence in the early 1920s, a time of political turmoil and social change. The story focuses on the Fall of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, symbolized through the life of 18-year-old Lois Farquar, who is living with her aunt and uncle at their country estate, Danielstown. Through Bowen’s rich, atmospheric prose, The Last September portrays the personal and cultural upheaval of the period, highlighting the impact of historical change on individual lives.

First published in 1938, The Death of the Heart follows the story of sixteen-year-old orphan, Portia Quayne, who moves to London to live with her cold and emotionally repressed half-brother, Thomas, and his wife. Somewhat naïve and pining for love, Portia soon becomes infatuated with the charming yet shallow Eddie, a friend of her sister-in-law’s.

In this piercing story of innocence betrayed set in the 30s, the orphaned Portia is stranded in the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home in London. There she encounters the attractive, carefree cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and her fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayal.

Many people have fled the city, and those who stayed behind find themselves thrown together in an odd intimacy born of crisis. Stella Rodney is one of those who chose to stay. But for her, the sense of impending catastrophe becomes acutely personal when she discovers that her lover, Robert, is suspected of selling secrets to the enemy, and that the man who is following him wants Stella herself as the price of his silence. Caught between these two men, not sure whom to believe, Stella finds her world crumbling as she learns how little we can truly know of those around us.

In 1920, at their country home in County Cork, Sir Richard Naylor and his wife, Lady Myra, and their friends maintain a skeptical attitude toward the events going on around them, but behind the facade of tennis parties and army camp dances, all know that the end is approaching-the end of British rule in the south of Ireland, and the demise of a way of life that had survived for centuries. Their niece, Lois Farquar, attempts to live her own life and gain her own freedoms from the very class that her elders are vainly defending.

Sci-Fi: The Definitive Collection is a collection of 29 classic science fiction novels and stories, read by esteemed cast of award-winning narrators. Included here are stories by some of the most iconic science fiction writers of all time, including H.G. Wells; Jules Verne; H.P. Lovecraft; Maragret Cavendish; Yevgeny Zamyatin; and more.

A chilling collection of classic gothic horror and ghost stories adapted or written by women In this breathtaking collection of gothic horror and eerie tales, draw the curtains and pull the blankets close for two classic Victorian horror tales in new adaptations, Dracula starring Nicky Henson...

This curated collection brings together five iconic works from some of Ireland's greatest writers, each offering a distinct voice and vision that helped shape modern Irish literature. From gothic horror to modernist experimentation, biting satire to fading aristocracy, these novels capture the complexities of identity, society, and imagination across centuries.

A story from Night in the Front Line, a collection of Second World War short stories. One of Elizabeth Bowen’s most well-known stories, The Demon Lover sees Mrs Drover return to her abandoned London home, her family having settled into evacuated life in the countryside, to find a letter waiting for her.

Elizabeth Bowen was one of the 20th century's most distinctive writers. An associate of the Bloomsbury Set, she was a keen observer of upper-middle-class life and relationships. Best known for her novels of the Anglo-Irish gentry and wartime London, her fiction displays recurring themes of loss, rootlessness and displacement. This collection contains five of Bowen's best-loved works, and hears from the author herself in three radio talks on the art of novel-writing.

When 16-year-old Portia is orphaned, she is plunged into the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home. There she encounters the attractive cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and he fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayal - and sets in motion one of the most moving and desperate flights of the heart in modern literature.

A collection of stories by noted Irish-British author Elizabeth Bowen are tales of psychological unease, of pent-up emotions simmering until boiling over. Her knack for putting the reader into fully realized worlds of her characters, experiencing the societal anxieties they repress, is unrivaled among 20th century writers.

In this volume we examine Gothic short stories from the woman’s point of view. More usually in this genre the main examples are almost always given as male. Well, in this volume we prove that view needs severely testing. Here we explore works by classic women authors who, with the sheer breadth of their talents and narratives, can make mere men seem tame by comparison.

There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Most religions also have 3 this and 3 that and, of course, in these more modern times, three’s a crowd may be too many, except when it’s a ménage à trois. It seems good things usually come in threes.

It is wartime London, and the carelessness of people with no future flows through the evening air. Stella discovers that her lover, Robert, is suspected of selling information to the enemy. Harrison, the British intelligence agent on his trail, wants to bargain, the price for his silence being Stella herself. Caught between two men and unsure who she can trust, the flimsy structures of Stella's life begin to crumble.

When 11-year-old Henrietta arrives at the Fishers' residence in Paris, little does she know what fascinating secrets the house itself contains. Henrietta finds that her visit coincides with that of Leopold, an intense child who has come to Paris to be introduced to the mother he has never known. In the course of a single day, the mystery surrounding Leopold, his parents, Henrietta's agitated hostess and the dying matriarch in bed upstairs comes to light slowly and tantalisingly.

The Irish troubles rage, but up at the 'Big House', tennis parties, dances and flirtations with the English officers continue, undisturbed by the ambushes, arrests and burning country beyond the gates. Faint vibrations of discord reach the young girl Lois, who is straining for her own freedom, and she will witness the troubles surge closer and reach their irrevocable, inevitable climax.