"Originally published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape Ltd, London, in 1980 and subsequently published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York in 1981"--title page verso.

Elizabeth Bowen was born in Dublin in 1899. She wrote many acclaimed short stories and novels, including The Heat of the Day, The Death of the Heart, The Last September, and Eva Trout. She was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1948. She died in 1973.

JOHN BANVILLE, author of seventeen novels, has been the recipient of the Man Booker Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Guardian Fiction Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, and the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. He lives in Dublin.