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Zusatztext "Bowen is magnificent when she writes about conspiracy! duplicity and ambiguity! and her achievement . . . is extremely impressive." –Margaret Drabble "[Elizabeth Bowen] is what happened after Bloomsbury . . . the link that connects Virginia Woolf with Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark." –Victoria Glendinning "It is as though Henry James has been superimposed upon Jane Austen." –Walter Allen! The Modern Novel Informationen zum Autor Elizabeth Bowen was born in Dublin in 1899. She wrote many acclaimed short stories and novels, including The Heat of the Day, The Death of the Heart, The Last September, and Eva Trout . She was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1948. She died in 1973. Klappentext Eva Trout , Elizabeth Bowen's last novel, epitomizes her bold exploration of the territory between the comedy of manners and cutting social commentary. Orphaned at a young age, Eva has found a home of sorts in Worcestershire with her former schoolteacher, Iseult Arbles, and Iseult's husband, Eric. From a safe distance in London, her legal guardian, Constantine, assumes that all's well. But Eva's flighty, romantic nature hasn't entirely clicked with the Arbles household, and Eva is plotting to escape. When she sets out to hock her Jaguar and disappear without a trace, she unwittingly leaves a paper trail for her various custodians-and all kinds of trouble-to follow.ONE Outing This is where we were to have spent the honeymoon," Eva Trout said, suddenly, pointing across the water. She had pulled up the car on a grass track running along the edge of a small lake. She switched off the engine--evidently, they were to gaze at the castle for some time. Her carload of passengers was dumbfounded. Nothing of this had been mentioned before. The four Dancey children, packed in the back seat, climbed over one another to see better (the view was framed by the Jaguar's left-hand windows). Of their mother, in front beside Eva, more seemed required--Mrs. Dancey, wildly craning her neck, brought out: "Not in winter, I hope?" "No--spring. There would have been daffodils." The castle, mirrored into the sheet of probably artificial water, did not look ancient. Nor did it look indigenous; though its setting was English, the pile resembled some Bavarian fantasy. Light-coloured, standing straight up out of the lake (there was no terrace), the facade showed with photographic distinctness in the now fading January afternoon. Its windows, many of which were balconied, one and all were made sightless by white shutters. Above the turreted roofline rose steep woods, sepia with winter: no smoke from any contorted chimney blurred the transparency of the trees. The only movement was in the foreground, where swans rippled the image cast on the water by zigzagging absently to and fro. Though the Jaguar must have been nosing towards it for some time (along woodland rides, through tunnels of evergreen) the castle had only now come into view, with dramatic suddenness. And the same might be said of Eva's design. The Danceys had had no idea where they might be going to, or why: all they knew was, Miss Trout was taking them for an outing. For two-and-a-half hours, up hill, down dale, they had been rushing through cold scenery. What they'd been more and more earnestly looking forward to was a stop for tea: this was a sunless and sere day for pleasure motoring. It was some weeks, now, since Miss Trout had first invaded the vicarage, showering benefits on them, often mixed ones. How long, they wondered, would this go on for? For ever and ever? Perhaps not . . . "Closed for the winter, evidently," said Mrs. Dancey. She hazarded: "Is it in private ownership?" "It was a school for a while. Not now--no; we should have had it all to ourselves," the girl said, nonchalantly and grandly. "Mother," a...
