'Erotic fondling of the pen': how Elizabeth Bowen's passionate love-letters inspired her writing
Anglo-Irish novelist Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973) Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo “Ghost, get, out.” As Julia Parry started taking notes on her computer for this book about her grandfather’s love affair with the novelist Elizabeth Bowen, the keyboard lurched out of control, spitting out a gibberish from which only those three monosyllables emerged coherently. Even the most cynical rationalist might suspect this to have been a message from beyond, albeit one that could be variously interpreted. Parry took it as a positive sign of an “electric connection” with her subje...