With the temporary closure of the Memorial Park Library (home to the Calgary Women’s Literary Club), Mooréa G.’s presentation was moved to Zoom, where thirty-eight active members, honorary members, and guests were in attendance.

Prior to discussing the works of writer Elizabeth Bowen, Mooréa provided background on the Anglo-Irish Big House. In order to understand some of Bowen’s writing, Mooréa felt it was important to become familiar with these houses and the families who inhabited them.

Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973) was the only child of well-to-do Anglo-Irish, Protestant parents. As a child, she spent many summers with her family at the ancestral home, Bowen’s Court. Upon the death of her father in 1930, Bowen inherited Bowen’s Court, though was forced to sell it in 1960 as it was financially unsustainable. The house was demolished shortly after. Bowen wrote: “It was a clean end. Bowen’s Court never lived to be a ruin.”

Bowen published ten novels, over one hundred short stories, non-fiction, a children’s book, reviews and articles. Mooréa discussed at length three books: The Last September, The Death of the Heart, and Bowen’s Court. In the two novels, The Last September and The Death of the Heart, the main, female characters closely resemble the writer, and take place in Ireland and England, respectively. Bowen’s Court is a non-fiction account of the house, the Bowen family, and the decline of the Anglo-Irish ascendancy.

Posted by Janet Halls and Mooréa G.