Jane Bowles (1917-1973)

A selective list of online literary criticism for American writer Jane Bowles, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the MLA guidelines for web pages


main page | 20th-century literary criticism | 20th-century fiction | 20th-century women writers | Paul Bowles | about literaryhistory.com


introduction & literary criticism

Dillon, Millicent. "Jane Bowles: A Short Biography." At paulbowles.org.

Dillon, Millicent. "Keeper of the Flame." The efforts of a young Spanish woman to protect the grave of Jane Bowles. The New Yorker 27 January 1997.

Carlson, Jon. "The Gathering Spirit of Jane Bowles." Rain Taxi Summer 2002.

The Authorized Paul Bowles Web Site, www.paulbowles.org. Ed. Kenneth Lisenbee. A Paul Bowles web site authorized by the estate of Paul Bowles. Contains a biography on Paul Bowles by Allen Hibbard and on Jane Bowles by Millicent Dillon, additional essays on Paul Bowles, photographs, memorial essays and interviews, an extensive bibliography for Paul Bowles and detail about his musical works and scores, a briefer bibliography for Jane Bowles, and more.

"Millicent Dillon: An Inventory of Her Papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center." Interview notes and tapes for A Little Original Sin, catalogue of original Jane Bowles material, also Paul Bowles material.

Kraft, James. "Jane Bowles as Serious Lady." A review of The Collected Works of Jane Bowles, introduction by Truman Capote (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1966). Novel 1 (1968) [first page only].

Miller, Jane. "Cataract: Appreciating Jane Bowles." HOW(ever). Ed. Kathleen Frasier. Archive,1983-1992.

Skerl, Jennie. A Tawdry Place of Salvation: The Art of Jane Bowles. (Southern Illinois UP 1997). At Questia (subscription service). Contents: "Sallies into the Outside World: A Literary History of Jane Bowles," by Jennie Skerl; "The Narrative Erotics of Two Serious Ladies, by Carolyn J. Allen; "'The Americans Stick Pretty Much in Their Own Quarter': Jane Bowles and Central America," by Stephen Benz; "Family Dynamics in Jane Bowles's In the Summer House," by Peter G. Christensen; "Mommy Dearest: Mothers and Daughters in Jane Bowles's In the Summer House and Other Plays by Contemporary Women Writers," by Charlotte Goodman; "Sister Act: A Reading of Jane Bowles's Puppet Play," by Regina Weinreich; "Jane Bowles and the Semi-Oriental Woman," by John Maier; "Jane Bowles in Uninhabitable Places: Writing on Cultural Boundaries," by Carol Shloss; "'Some Fun in the Mud': Decrepitude and Salvation in the World of Jane Bowles," by Robert E. Lougy; "The Unfinished Jane Bowles," by Gena Dagel Caponi; "Toward a Postmodern Aesthetic: Indeterminacy, Instability, and Inconclusiveness in Out in the World," by Allen E. Hibbard. Also, a review by Janet Bowdan. College Literature 26 (Winter 1999) [first page only, jstor].

Skerl, Jennie. "The legend of Jane Bowles: stories of the female avant-garde." Texas Studies in Literature and Language 44 (1999). At Questia (subscription service).

Tinkler, Alan. "Jane Bowles." The Review of Contemporary Fiction 2006.


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With thanks to Jennie Skerl for advising and reviewing