Love and Lovers

Laurence, Patricia

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-71360-7_5

Patricia Laurence²

Part of the book series: Literary Lives ((LL))

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Abstract

This chapter reveals how Bowen’s passionate romantic experiences in life are reflected in her interest as a writer in the subject of modern love. Love with its new sexual freedoms is a devastating and absorbing emotion for her female characters—though not necessarily the men. Cameos of her marriage and relationships with lovers—male and female, intellectuals and writers—are spotlighted: Humphry House, Goronwy Rees, Sean O’Faolain, May Sarton, and most importantly, Charles Ritchie. Her romantic experiences reveal passions and dissonances in her temperament that dispel the “reserved” Bowen myth and that fuel her writing. The joys, frustrations and disappointments of newly liberated women enter into her writing and lead us to read her novels, The House in Paris, The Heat of the Day, and To the North in new ways.

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Notes

1.
David Cecil’s comments, “Sunday Feature: Radio 3,” April 2, 2000, BBC, NSA.
2.
Berlin, interview by Michael Ignatieff, May 7, 1991, MI Tape 13, p. 16. Berlin was 81 years old.
3.
Corcoran, “Sunday Feature: Radio 3,” April 2, 2000, BBC, NSA.
4.
Glendinning, Elizabeth Bowen, 106.
5.
“Woman’s Hour,” Lee and Lively.
6.
Glendinning, Elizabeth Bowen, 51.
7.
MT, 194–195.
8.
EB to CR, November 18, 1945, LCW, 45.
9.
Corcoran, “Sunday Feature: Radio 3,” April 2, 2000, BBC, NSA.
10.
“Horrors of Childhood,” 111—see Hepburn, Essays?∗
11.
EB to CR, November 23, 1946, LCW, 101–102.
12.
Bowen, letter to Charles Ritchie, December 20, 1957, Glendinning LCW, 192.
13.
BC, 75.
14.
Molly Keane, “Life with the Lid Off,” September 28, 1983, BBC, NSA.
15.
EB to CR, January 5, 1950, LCW, 149.
16.
National Archive sources and National Archive Medal Cards (WO372), BNL.
17.
FR, 91.
18.
Lehmann, “Elizabeth Bowen—Obituary.”
19.
Molly Keane, “Elizabeth of Bowen’s Court,” The Irish Times [ca 1973]∗.
20.
EB to CR, January 30, 1945, LCW, 42.
21.
EB to VW, August 26, 1935, SU.
22.
Quennell, Customs and Characters, 89.
23.
Glendinning, Elizabeth Bowen, 210.
24.
Bowra, Memories, 190.
25.
EB to Leslie Hartley, October 21, 1952, JRUL, MS Letters.
26.
“Elizabeth and Her Highland Scot,” Hennessy, Miscellaneous Files.
27.
Bowen, “The Culture of Nostalgia,” in Hepburn, Listening In, 98. “An abiding city,” Bowen’s recurrent phrase from Hebrews 1 3:14.
28.
EB to IB, October 8, 1952, BOD, MS. Berlin 145v.
29.
EB to MS, October 6, 1952, NYPL, MS. Sarton.
30.
EB to IB, October 8, 1952, BOD, MS. Berlin 145r.
31.
EB to SS, August 4, 1953, BOD, MS. Spender 39.
32.
Sarton, Shower of Summer Days, 49.
33.
HH to EB, July 12, 1933. HHC. With permission from the Literary Estate of Humphry House.
34.
Woolf, letter to Vanessa Bell, May 4, 1934, Letters 5, 299.
35.
IB to Marion Frankfurter, June 3, 1936, Berlin, Flourishing, 171.
36.
See Curtis Brown files, HRC 10.5, January 28, and 46 other instances.
37.
EB to CR, April 14, 1949, LCW, 136.
38.
HP, 153, 157, 164.
39.
John Bayley to EB (ca. 1968), about ET, HRC, Bowen 10.6.
40.
EB, December 18, 1933, BOD, MS. Berlin 292, folio 14r.
41.
EB to HH, fragment, 1937, HHC.
42.
Proust, Sodom and Gomorrah, 139.
43.
EB to HH, November 8, 1934, HHC.
44.
CR journal, August 18, 1952, LCW, 182.
45.
Powell, Constant Novelist, 120–21, 8.
46.
Ibid., 8.
47.
EB to HH, July 13, 1937, HHC.
48.
Ibid., July 12, 1933.
49.
Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. “Humphry House.”
50.
Ibid., June 3, 1936.
51.
EB to HH, March 16, 1955, HHC.
52.
Ibid., January 20, 1936.
53.
HH to EB, June 14, 1933, HHC. With permission from the Literary Estate of Humphry House.
54.
EB to HH, July 12, 1933, HHC.
55.
EB to HH, July 12, 1933, HHC.
56.
HH to EB, December 20, 1933, HHC. With permission from the Literary Estate of Humphry House.
57.
Bowen’s letters to House missing after 1934: in Madeline’s possession after House’s death, 1955, probably repressed or destroyed.
58.
IB to Maire Gaster née Lynd, January 11, 1982, Berlin, Flourishing, 52n1.
59.
EB to WP, August 3, 1927, DUR 19.
60.
IB to EB, December 1933, BOD Ms Berlin, 245, folio 14.
61.
EB to HH, January 20, 1936, HHC.
62.
EB to CR, September 7, 1948, LCW, 134.
63.
EB to HH, January 20, 1936, HHC.
64.
Arthur Calder-Marshall to EB (n.d.), HRC, 10.6.
65.
John House, interview by PL, London, June 2011.
66.
Masters, “John House—Obituary.”
67.
Maurice Bowra to EB, February 24, 1955, HRC 10.6.
68.
EB to HH, November 8, 1934, HHC.
69.
HP, 159, 55.
70.
Ibid., 55.
71.
CS, 510.
72.
EB to HH, July 12, 1933, HHC.
73.
Ibid. November 8, 1934.
74.
Ibid.
75.
Ibid.
76.
Ibid., May 18, 1935.
77.
Ibid., June 6, 1934.
78.
LS, 128.
79.
Dierdre Toomey: Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. “Humphrey House.”
80.
Ridler, Olive Willis and Downe House.
81.
EB to CR, November 18, 1945, LCW, 74.
82.
Kreilkamp, in Walshe, Elizabeth Bowen: Visions and Revisions, 11.
83.
IB to Mary Fisher, October 23, 1936, Berlin, Flourishing, 210.
84.
Plomer, sketch from At Home, 52.
85.
Rees, Looking for Mr. Nobody, 83–84.
86.
Ibid., 85.
87.
IB to Rosamond Lehmann, early October 1936, Berlin, Flourishing, 203–204.
88.
EB to IB, shortly after September 23, 1936, BOD, MS. Berlin 245, fols. 64–5.
89.
Berlin, interview by Michael Ignatieff, May 7, 1991, MI, Tape 13, p. 17.
90.
Ibid.
91.
Lehmann, “Elizabeth Bowen—Obituary.”
92.
EB to CR, October 24, 1949, LCW, 142–143.
93.
EB to IB, September [n.d.] 1936, BOD, MS. Berlin 245.
94.
See David, Olivia Manning, 11.
95.
GR to IB, September 26, 1936, BOD, MS. Berlin 274, folio 27.
96.
CR journal, January 30, 1943, LCW, 36.
97.
GR to IB, September 26, 1936, BOD, MS. Berlin 274, folio 27.
98.
O’Faolain, Vive Moi, 301–303.
99.
EB to WP, August 17, 1936, DUR 19.
100.
EB to HH, May [n.d.], 1937, HHC.
101.
SIW, preface.
102.
EB to HH, May [n.d.], 1937, HHC.
103.
SOF to EB, July 1939, HRC 11.7.
104.
O’Faolain, Vive Moi, 304.
105.
Bowen, “Summer Night,” CS, 588.
106.
Ibid., 300–301.
107.
See Heather Ingman, 96ff.
108.
O’Faolain, ed., The Bell, February 1941.
109.
SOF to EB, April 22, 1937, HRC 11.6.
110.
O’Faolain, Vive Moi, 311.
111.
SOF to EB, April 22, 1937, HRC 11.6.
112.
Ibid.
113.
Julia O’Faolain, afterword to Vive Moi, xiii.
114.
Ibid. 304–305.
115.
Ibid., 301.
116.
Ibid., xi.
117.
Ibid., 304–307.
118.
Ibid., 310.
119.
EB to MS, 1936–1956, NYPL, MSS Sarton.
120.
Ann Waldron. Eudora Welty, A Writer’s Life, 209.
121.
Woolf, April 9, 1937, Letters 6, 118n2.
122.
EB to CR, January 11, 1942, in Ritchie, Siren Years, 131.
123.
Berthoff interview.
124.
EB to MS, May 31, 1937, NYPL, MSS Sarton.
125.
Woolf, October 9, 1937, Letters 6, 181.
126.
CR to EB, April 22, 1960, LCW, 396.
127.
CR journal, June 28, 1959, LCW, 324–325.
128.
MS to EB, November 20, 1935, NYPL, MSS Sarton.
129.
Sarton, World of Light, 192–193.
130.
MS to EB, December 11, 1938, NYPL, MSS Sarton.
131.
Sarton, World of Light, 197.
132.
EB to MS, n.d., 1937, NYPL, MSS Sarton.
133.
Ibid., June 8, 1937.
134.
Ibid., August 1, 1937.
135.
Ibid., August 30, 1937.
136.
VW to EB, April 9, 1937. See Letters 6, 119 n2.
137.
VW to MS, June 16, 1937, Letters 6, 137.
138.
MS to EB, May 26, 1939, HRC 12.2.
139.
Ibid., January 16, 1938.
140.
Ibid., December 11, 1938.
141.
EB to MS, May 31, 1937, HRC 12.2.
142.
Cynthia Lovelace Sears, interview by PL, New York, May 8, 2008.
143.
EB to MS, October 6, 1952, NYPL, MSS Sarton.
144.
EB to MS, June 9, 1952. HRC 12.2.
145.
MS to EB, August 25, 1965, HRC 12.2.
146.
LCW, Comment, 358.
147.
EW to EB, n.d. (ca. spring 1951), HRC 12.3.
148.
Marrs, Eudora Welty, 190–202.
149.
Welty to Maxwell, What There is to Say… March 30, 1968, 248–249.
150.
Ibid., September 4, 1983, 386.
151.
EB to CR, October 22, 1945, LCW, 71.
152.
LeFanu, Carmilla, 32.
153.
ET, 54.
154.
Lassner and Derdiger, “Domestic Gothic,” 195–214.
155.
ET, 40.
156.
Woolf, Diary, 3, 193.
157.
A.E. Coppard to EB, August 12, 1932, HRC 10.6.
158.
Woolf, Orlando, 161.
159.
Lehmann, “Rosamond Lehmann—Interview,” Paris Review.
160.
VW to Ethel Smyth, March 17, 1932, Letters 5, 35.
161.
VW to Vita Sackville-West, October 18, 1932, Letters 5, 111.
162.
CR Journal, November 20, 1967, LCW, 446.
163.
EB to CR, January 7, 1950, LCW, 152–153.
164.
Howard, Slipstream, 218.
165.
Proust, Swann’s Way, 571.
166.
HD, 49. Also see Feigel, The Love Charm of Bombs, traces the love lives of five writers during the London blitz—including Bowen.
167.
EB to CR, May 7, 1962, LCW, 385.
168.
Ritchie, Siren Years, 88.
169.
Ibid., 22.
170.
CR journal, September 29, 1941, LCW, 24.
171.
Ritchie, Siren Years, 143.
172.
Feigel, Love Charm of Bombs, 176–177.
173.
EB to CR, January 1958, LCW, 13.
174.
The Siren Years: A Canadian Diplomat Abroad, 1937–1945; An Appetite for Life: The Education of a Young Diplomat, 1924–1927; Diplomatic Passport: More Unpublished Diaries, 1946–1962.
175.
Glendinning, Elizabeth Bowen.
176.
Ritchie, Siren Years, May 25, 1982, 177.
177.
CR journal, January 30, 1943, LCW, 36.
178.
Ibid., October 6, 1954, 193.
179.
CR journal, October 29, 1967, LCW, 445.
180.
Ibid., April 7, 1946, 89.
181.
Ibid., December 25, 1945, 81.
182.
EB to CR, November 18, 1946, LCW, 99–100.
183.
Ibid., January 16, 1948, 121.
184.
CR to Lester Pearson, February 24, 1947.
185.
EB to CR, April 2, 1947, LCW, 11.
186.
CR journal, April 1, 1947. LCW, 107.
187.
EB to CR, October 24, 1949, LCW, 141.
188.
CR journal, August 18, 1953, LCW, 182.
189.
EB to CR, March 16, 1955, LCW, 207–208.
190.
Ibid., January 1958, 13.
191.
CR journal, June 13, 1942, LCW, 33.
192.
Ibid., September19, 1948, 133.
193.
Ibid., May 1, 1947, 108.
194.
EB to CR, August 1, 1948, LCW, 128.
195.
CR journal, April 21, 1942, LCW, 32.
196.
Ibid., December 9, 1954, 198.
197.
Ibid.
198.
Ibid., May 24, 1942, 32.
199.
EB to CR, June 6, 1964, LCW, 424.
200.
Ibid., May 15, 1956, 233.
201.
EB to CR, June 17, 1948, LCW, 124.
202.
Ibid., April 11, 1950, 166.
203.
Ibid., December 6, 1947, 112–113.
204.
Ibid., August 1, 1950, 175.
205.
Ibid., September 2, 1945, 58–60.
206.
EB to CR, December 6, 1947, LCW 113.
207.
CR journal, May 9, 1955, LCW, 212–213.
208.
Ibid., May 12, 1956, 232.
209.
Ibid.
210.
EB to CR, April 14, 1969, LCW, 454.
211.
HP, 137.
212.
O’Faolain, Vive Moi, 309.

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City University of New York, New York, NY, USA
Patricia Laurence

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Laurence, P. (2021). Love and Lovers. In: Elizabeth Bowen. Literary Lives. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71360-7_5

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71360-7_5
Published: 22 July 2021
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-71359-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-71360-7
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