The Last September

This novel, published in 1929, deals with the aftermath of the First World War in the south of Ireland. Set in the fictionalised country seat of Danielstown, Co. Cork, it deals with the local military and paramilitary activity of the War of Independence. The main protagonist, Lois Farquar, the 18-year-old orphaned niece of the owner of Danielstown, falls in love with Gerald Lesworth, an English army officer stationed at a nearby garrison. The title suggests the inevitable doom of the family home — “At Danielstown, half-way up the avenue under the beeches, the thin iron gate twanged as the last unlit car slid out with the executioners bland from accomplished duty... Above the steps, the door stood open hospitably upon a furnace." — and the predictable violent termination of the impending marriage between Lois and Gerald.

The author, Elizabeth Bowen (born 7 June 1899), spent her early childhood in her native Dublin and in England. She spent her summers on the family estate of Bowen’s Court in north Co. Cork. Her first book to be published, a collection of short stories, appeared in 1923. A second collection came out in 1926; a year later her first novel was published. Although she inherited Bowen’s Court in 1930, she continued to reside in England until 1952, when her husband retired and they moved to Ireland. She wrote ten novels as well as numerous short stories and works of non-fiction. She sold the family home in 1960 and returned to England, living in southern Kent from 1965. Her last novel, Eva Trout, was the winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 1969.

The owner of Danielstown, Sir Richard Naylor, comments on the significant relationship between the First World War and the War of Independence:
“This country is altogether too full of soldiers, with nothing to do but dance and poke old women out of their beds to look for guns. It's unsettling the people, naturally. The fact is the army's got into the habit of fighting and doesn't know what else to do with itself...”
Early in the novel he's dismissive of the suggestion that the area is turning into a war zone. When asked  whether he's sure they “will not be shot at if [they] sit out late on the steps”, he jokingly replies, “We never have yet, not even with soldiers here and Lois dancing with officers up and down the avenue” and adds, sarcastically, “Do you think maybe we ought to put sandbags behind the shutters when we shut up at nights?”