Patricia Laurence - Elizabeth Bowen: A Literary Life

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Writing a biography almost half a century after Elizabeth Bowens death leaves few of the living to consult. Biography then becomes an itineraryto libraries, universities, museums, and institutes that contain writings about her life and times in Ireland, England, and Americabut also a journey to the landscapes that Bowen loved. Beneath the physical archive is the psychic archivecontained in letters, memories, people, and placesvaried and unexpectedcreated by Bowen herself, family members, friends, literary agents, past biographers, historians, and critics. There are many to thank along the way.

First, heartfelt thanks to Phyllis Lassner, Professor Emerita, Northwestern University, for her early belief in and encouragement of this biography and her expert readinggiven her own early and prescient Bowen publicationsof the manuscript in its early stages. I also owe a particular debt to Laetitia Lefroy, Bowens first cousin, for generously offering an interview and patiently providing family information as well as photos of the Colley family in endless e-mails over the course of several years. Judith Robertson, niece of Charles Ritchie and editor with Victoria Glendinning of Bowen and Ritchies correspondence and journalsdeserves special thanks for graciously offering letters, notes, and information about Charles Ritchie and his Canadian colleagues. I am grateful also for the generosity of Professor Allan Hepburn, McGill University who shared information in the early stages of this project, and, importantly, brought Bowens life as a public intellectual and cultural and political agent out of the shadows for Bowen studies through publication of her unpublished writings and talks.

And thanks to my editor, Allie Troyanos, for her belief in my work, and Rachel Jacobs for her patience with the preparation of this book for the press.

Biographers and Critics:Books are built upon books, states Virginia Woolf. Mine is no exception, and I have learned much from Victoria Glendinnings portrait,Elizabeth Bowen: A Biography(1977) published four years after Bowens death, and her recent co-edited collection of letters and journals of Bowen and Charles Ritchie. Invaluable early writing on Bowen includes Hermione Lee,Estimations(1981, 1999); Patricia Craig,Biography(1986); Phyllis Lassner,Elizabeth Bowen(1990), andThe Short Fiction of Elizabeth Bowen(1991); Heather Bryant Jordan,How Will the Heart Endure: Elizabeth Bowen and the Landscape of War(1992); and Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle,Elizabeth Bowen and the Dissolution of the Novel(1995). The 1999 Bowen centenary spurred numerous publications, including Allan Hepburns collection of Bowens unpublished writings and talks (20052010) and Glendinning and RobertsonsLoves Civil War: Elizabeth Bowen & Charles Ritchie, Letters and Diaries, 19411973(2008). Influential critical studies followed, including Maude Ellmanns psychological exploration,Elizabeth Bowen: The Shadow Across the Page(2003); Neil Corcorans prescient exploration of Bowens writing on childhood, war, and Ireland,Elizabeth Bowen: The Enforced Return(2004); and Clair WillsThat Neutral Island: A History of Ireland During the Second World War(2007), an invaluable resource for revelations about how life was lived under neutrality as well as the political reasoning behind Irelands policy.

Librarians:The pursuit of letters has taken me on several trips to libraries where I have met remarkable librarians, caryatids of archives. In America: for early encouragement, guidance, and a fellowship award for research, gratitude to Thomas S. Staley, retired director of the Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, Molly Schwartzenburg, librarian, and Pat; Gayle Richardson and Sue Horton, Huntington Library, CA.; Jennifer Tobias, MOMA Library, NYC; John Tofanelli, Coordinator of British and American Collections, Columbia University; Bob Scott, Columbia University Technical Lab; and Shelley B. Barber and Justine E. Sundaram, John J. Burns Library, Boston College. In England: for generous, timely and expert guidance through the labyrinth of the British National Archives, Kew, Neill Cobbett, Modern Overseas Records Specialist, SOE and Propaganda Modern Overseas Records; Colin Harris, Bodleian, Oxford; Rod Hamilton, David Sharp, BBC Archives, British National Library; Janet Adamson, Folkstone Family and Oral History Society, Hythe for early and generous assistance with Hythe family records and the census; Andrew J.P. Gray, archivist, Durham Library, Durham; Patricia McGuire, Kings College Library, Cambridge University; Alison Smith, Archivist, Oxfordshire History Centre, Oxford; Andrew Melcher, Chair of Hythe Civic Society; Andrew Hudson, Heritage Room Folkestone Library; and Sue Kewer, Hythe. In Ireland: thanks to Ms. Sam Coade and Frances Clarke, Division of Ms., National Library of Ireland; and Ruth Potterton and Estelle Gittins, Trinity College Library, Dublin.