The Last September, The House in Paris, and The Heat of the Day. Her books of nonfiction included English Novelists, A Time in Rome, and Seven Winters: Memories of a Dublin Childhood.
The 1989 biography Elizabeth Bowen by Allan E. Austin quotes an Oxford friend of Bowen, the distinguished classics scholar C.M. Bowra, as saying, “She had a slight stutter which added force to her remarks.” Austin wrote that the hesitations in her speech did not dissuade her from frequent appearances on BBC radio programs or prevent her university work. “She was largely able to command it, but in any event, it was looked upon as an endearing characteristic.”
ELIZABETH BOWEN
Elizabeth Bowen (1899 – 1973) was born in Dublin to an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family that was granted a huge track of land in County Cork on account of their ancestor being a loyal colonel in Lord Oliver Cromwell’s army as it waged its campaign against the native Irish. Moving to England at age eight, she was educated there and began her writing career. She inherited her family’s sprawling estate, known as Bowen’s Court, in Ireland and returned there to live with her husband in 1952.
Her works encompassed novels, short story collections, and nonfiction. Her first book was a collection of short stories entitled Encounters which was published in 1923. During World War II she worked reporting on Irish opinions for the British Ministry of Information. After the war, she traveled among elite literary circles and published more books. Some of her novels were
"(Her stutter) did not indicate any lack of confidence in what she was saying; and was often found by others to be an additional charm in her.”
- BIOGRAPHER VICTORIA GLENDINNING, ON BOWEN
The 1977 biography Elizabeth Bowen: A Biography by Victoria Glendinning put forth, “Elizabeth’s stammer, though it caused her agony as a girl, became very much a part of her as a woman. It was a stammer- not a stutter – she was particular about the distinction: stutterers were an altogether different class of person. Elizabeth’s stammer was a pronounced hesitation, a complete stalling on certain words. She would help herself out by gestures of her hands, and by substituting a different word. The severity of it varied; it was worse when she was tired, and sometimes almost non-existent when she spoke in public or on television. It did not indicate any lack of confidence in what she was saying; and was often found by others to be an additional charm in her.”
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