To The North (Vintage Classics) [Paperback]

""To the North "and "The Death of the Heart "are among the finest novels of her generation." -V. S. Pritchett
"A lavishness of imagination is brought to bear upon small moments, and the writing is of such intensity that a character is revealed in one expression, a way of life disclosed in a single scene." -Peter Ackroyd, "Sunday Times" (London)
"The worlds Elizabeth Bowen creates are so immediately absorbing . . . so fascinating, that one cannot help wanting more." -"Daily Telegraph"

TO THE NORTH portrays a classic romantic entanglement of a sympathetic, honest, well-meaning young woman who cannot resist becoming involved with a man who is patently caddish and predatory. In striking and richly comic contrast to the turbulence of this passion is the cool, detached atmosphere of the house in St John's Wood in which it takes its course - where the young woman's sister-in-law with her strictly unromantic preoccupations is always near by, the orphaned teenager Pauline presents herself as gawky innocence itself, and the power-loving busybody Lady Waters misses nothing.

Set in London during the twenties, To the North centres on the lives of two young women, the recently widowed Cecilia Summers and her sister-in-law Emmeline.

Cecilia, capricious and unable to really love anyone, moves reluctantly towards a second marriage to the kind, passionless Julian Tower. Emmeline, gentle but independent, is surprised to find the calm tenor of her life disturbed by her attraction to the predatory Mark Linkwater. At first she is able to accept their love affair on Mark's terms but, in the pain of misunderstanding, Emmeline reveals her vulnerability in a violent and tragic act.

'A lavishness of imagination is brought to bear upon small moments, and the writing is of such intensity that a character is revealed in one expression, a way of life disclosed in a single scene' Peter Ackroyd, Sunday Times

'To the North and The Death of the Heart are among the finest novels of her generation' V.S. Pritchett

Elizabeth Bowen was born in Dublin in 1899, the only child of an Irish lawyer and landowner. She was educated at Downe House School in Kent. Her book Bowen's Court (1942) is the history of her family and their house in County Cork, and Seven Winters (1943) contains reminiscences of her Dublin childhood. In 1923 she married Alan Cameron, who held an appointment with the BBC and who died in 1952. She travelled a good deal, dividing most of her time between London and Bowen's Court, which she inherited.
Elizabeth Bowen is considered by many to be one of the most distinguished novelists of the twentieth century. Her first book, a collection of short stories, Encounters, appeared in 1923, followed by another, Ann Lee's, in 1926. The Hotel (1927) was her first novel, and was followed by The Last September (1929), Joining Charles (1929), another book of short stories, Friends and Relations (1931), To the North (1932), The Cat Jumps (short stories, 1934), The House in Paris (1935), The Death of the Heart (1938), Look at All Those Roses (short stories, 1941), The Demon Lover (short stories, 1945), The Heat of the Day (1949), Collected Impressions (essays, 1950), The Shelborne (1951), A World of Love (1955), A Time in Rome (1960), Afterthought (essays, 1962), The Little Girls (1964), A Day in the Dark (1965) and her last book Eva Trout (1969).
She was awarded the CBE in 1948, and received honorary degrees from Trinity College, Dublin in 1949, and from Oxford University in 1956. In the same year she was appointed Lacy Martin Donnelly Fellow at Bryn Mawr College in the United States. The Royal Society of Literature made her a Companion of Literature in 1965. Elizabeth Bowen died in 1973.