BOWEN'S COURT

From contemporary documents, family records, legend, Elizabeth Bowen has reconstructed the biography of her ancestors, and of Bowen's Court, Cork County, Ireland. Care, affection and reverence have gone into this recreation of generations typical of their times and their class, Anglo-Irish gentry of means and traditions. Exclusive in interest as it may be, much of it is rewarding reading, even beyond the fine portraiture and tasteful writing. Behind the personal record is a record of Ireland over several centuries, the perpetual, persistent struggle for freedom, the great religious controversies, the famine, etc. Outstanding in a long list of Bowens were three, -- Henry I, whose apparition was to haunt his wife and who won the land by a hawk's flight; Henry III, who built the grandly conceived, bare, Italianate house; Henry VI, her grandfather, a forceful hard man. A fine piece of work, somewhat specialized in appeal.