“A writer of genius. . . . Bowen’s very first novel shows in bud her later sophistication, relentless eye, stern judgment, sense of comedy.” —London Review of Books
“If there is anything to the catchphrase ‘felt life,’ it is here—in Elizabeth Bowen’s munificence of detail, the fine closeness of the atmosphere which she creates.” —Peter Ackroyd
“[Bowen] is in the first rank of the brilliant women writers.” —The New York Times