A brilliant and much admired novelist, Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973) surpassed herself as a writer of short fiction: ''the supreme genius of her time'', writes John Banville in his introduction; ''There is not a story in this substantial volume ... that is not brought off beautifully.'' A substantial volume indeed, Including 79 stories written over four decades, ranging in setting from the County Cork of the author''s Anglo-Irish childhood to bomb-ravaged London where she coolly sat out the War, evoked with vivid and impeccable artistry. She has a disturbing sense of the uncanny, an acute eye for social comedy and her often emotionally secretive characters are depicted with penetrating psychological insight. She is good at houses, ghosts, children, animals ... 900 pages of sheer delight
