IVY GRIPPED THE STEPS AND OTHER STORIES (233 pp.)Elizabeth BowenKnopf ($2.50).
Any book by Anglo-Irish Novelist Elizabeth Bowen (The House in Paris, The Death of the Heart) is an event, even if a large section of the U.S. has yet to realize it. This new collection of short stories may bring a few more readers to appreciate her peculiar talent. She is one of the most knowing and subtle of modern writers, working usually in muted tones, off-colors, remotely gross or secret moods. At her best she is delicate, witty, adroit, a genuine craftsman in the sense that Virginia Woolf was...