The Shelbourne

Description

The history of Dublin's famous Shelbourne Hotel, told by one of Ireland's most brilliant novelists Elizabeth Bowen takes us on a tour through the history of the famous Dublin landmark, the Shelbourne Hotel, in this evocative account of Irish life. Looking out on Dublin as if from the windows of the Shelbourne, and then turning inward to witness the impact of events on the hotel, its guests and staff, Bowen paints a picture of what was, in the hotel's earlier days, the second city of the Empire, then the battleground of Irish independence and civil strife, and eventually the capital of a republic.

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.

Majestic * Irish Times * Lively and evocative -- Hermione Lee For Elizabeth Bowen, the world-famous novelist (who wrote a book about it), the Shelbourne was the "prototype for all large hotels - I cannot help comparing all others with it. Perhaps indeed in no other capital city does any one hotel play such an outstanding role" * Irish Independent *