The Death Of The Heart

Bowen's best known book. A piercing story of innocence betrayed.'One of the best novels about a young woman that I've ever read' Greta GerwigWhen sixteen-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.'One of the last century's greatest woman writers' Guardian'This is a stunning portrait of the human heart, a raw account of romantic betrayal and the pains of growing up' Sunday Times One of the 50 best books of the past 100 years

“Bowen is "the link that connects Virginia Woolf with Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark."”

-- Victoria Glendinning
Ironic comedy as well as tragedy, The Death of the Heart tells a story as old as wickedness: the world's betrayal of innocence TIME Magazine, 1939
Bowen had a genius for conveying the reader straight into the most powerful and complex regions of the heart New York Times

Elizabeth Bowen was born in Dublin in 1899, the only child of an Irish lawyer and land-owner. She travelled a great deal, dividing most of her time between London and Bowen's Court, the family house in County Cork which she inherited. Her first book, a collection of shorts stories, Encounters, was published in 1923. The Hotel (1926) was her first novel. She was awarded the CBE in 1948, and received honorary degrees from Trinity College, Dublin in 1949, and from Oxford University in 1956. The Royal Society of Literature made her a Companion of Literature in 1965. Elizabeth Bowen died in 1973.

'One of the last century's greatest woman writers' Guardian When sixteen-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. See also: The House in Paris

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