Bowen, Elizabeth — Ivy Gripped the Steps & Other Stories

New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1946. Hardcover. Blue cloth boards with stamped embossing, gilt lettering, red/black/white dj, [xvi] 233 pp. unillustrated. Twelve stories, written in wartime London.-between spring 1941 and late autumn 1944: [from the dj]: "the stories form an organic whole..without dealing w/violence of war, Bowen illuminates the spiritual violence of which the war has seemed the final public evidence--stifled dying or unseen living of the heart, survival by change of the personality..through the houses of England's broken walls, as through fissures & thin places in careful patterns of living, she lights up unresolved desires, weakness, unexpected beauty of people. Dj has author's biography w/ small photograph. VG, spine ends soft, cover edges slightly faded, dj spine darkened, pags clean and bright.