The Shadowy Third: Love, Letters, and Elizabeth Bowen

Teacher and writer Julia Parry explains how she uncovered an illicit love affair between her grandfather academic Humphrey House and the celebrated Irish novelist Elizabeth Bowen. It all began when they met at Maurice Bowra's table in Wadham!

The affair came to light when Parry received a box of old letters following a death in the family. She explains how the letters led her on a lifechanging quest to understand the affair and the repercussions for her family including her grandmother Madeline. Much of the story takes place against a backdrop of 1930s Oxford where House and Bowen met and where House was part of a circle that included Isaiah Berlin, Stephen Spender and Maurice Bowra. The story uncovers a world with complex and often surprising attitudes to love and sex, work and home, duty and ambition, and to writing.

Parry teaches English literature and has worked as a writer and photographer for a variety of publications and charities.

This event is part of the Oxford Literary Festival.