© Impedimenta, 2012
The Death of the Heart, Bowen's sixth novel, is the story of an orphaned 16-year-old girl, Portia, whose halfbrother and his wife reluctantly take her into their luxurious but emotionally sterile London home after the deaths of her parents. Bowen exposes a segment of English society between the First and Second World War that is stifling and almost completely lacking in compassion. Portia is lost in Thomas and Anna Quayne's world so she seeks solace and love in Eddie, Anna's ne'er-do-well friend and protégé. Her innocence and naïveté are a challenge to the Quaynes and their friends, who find her eagerness to fit in and her keen observations unsettling.
Victor Gollancz 1938
Translated into: German, Spanish, Russian
Camilla Hornby
Curtis Brown Group Ltd
Haymarket House
28 - 29 Haymarket
London SW1Y 4SP
United Kingdom
Email: camillah@curtisbrown.co.uk
Website: www.curtisbrown.co.uk