Content Warning: This guide features discussion of wartime violence, relationship abuse, sexuality, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and demon possession.

Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973) was a notable Irish English writer of novels and short stories dealing with Irish life as well as the lives of Londoners in the 1940s. She is also famous for her ghost stories. “The Demon Lover,” one of Bowen’s most famous works, was published in 1945 in the United Kingdom in a collection called The Demon Lover (titled Ivy Gripped the Steps in the United States). The story uses historical events and the myth of the “daemon lover,” which centers on a figure who abducts their former lover after a broken promise of faithfulness, leading the lover to her death. It is also a noted example of literary psychological horror; several critics have discussed the protagonist’s post-traumatic stress disorder as the cause of her distress.

This guide references the edition in The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen, published by Vintage Books/Random House in 1982.

“The Demon Lover” takes place in 1941 in London, England, during World War II. From 1940 to 1941, German forces bombed the city, the country’s major governmental center, in hopes that Great Britain would surrender. There were numerous civilian casualties and many families moved to the countryside for safety. “The Demon Lover” begins as the main character, 44-year-old Kathleen Drover, returns to her shut-up home to retrieve some items before heading back to the country. She arrives in late afternoon and notices the abandoned street. The house is stuffy from disuse and feels unfamiliar.

Inside, Mrs. Drover surveys the stillness and the items that were part of her daily life before the war. She decides to go upstairs to get the items she came to retrieve for her family. As Mrs. Drover makes her way upstairs, she sees a letter on a small table. This is curious to her because it must have been hand-delivered; all regular mail is being forwarded to the country, and the house’s caretaker is on holiday.

Upstairs in her bedroom, she reads the letter as it storms outside. The letter writer notes it is “our anniversary, and the day we said” (662). The letter bears “today’s” date, and the sender implies they will meet Mrs. Drover, whom they call by her first name, at the “arranged hour” (662). Mrs. Drover, unsettled, looks at herself in the mirror and notes her age and her normal expression of “controlled worry” (662). She doesn’t know how or when the letter writer will come; it has been a quarter of a century since the “promise” the letter alludes to took place.

Mrs. Drover then remembers her past—particularly a week in August 1916, during World War I. The soldier to whom she was engaged was on leave for a week from France. In the flashback, the young Kathleen is agitated and uncomfortable as the soldier keeps pressing her palm to a sharp button of his uniform. When she expresses concern he might die, he tells her that he “will be with [her …] sooner or later” (663).

The soldier went missing in the war, and she experienced a “dislocation from everything” that lasted for many years (664). In 1929, nearly 13 years after her first engagement, she married William Drover, had children, and lived a quiet life in London until the current crises. Now, the war, the empty house, and the letter make her feel like her secure family life has all been “cancelled” (664).

She wonders again how the letter got into the empty house and onto a table, questioning if the cause could be supernatural. Growing fearful, she decides she must flee to the country and her family. She determines to retrieve the necessary things and packs them up. She intends to call a taxi but remembers phone service has been cut off. For the second time, she recalls the soldier, his unkindness, and how she felt she did not exist during his visit. She cannot remember his face and notes that she wouldn’t know him if she were to meet him now.

She is determined to leave the house before the hour of the arranged meeting strikes and hurries to the taxi line. She notices the normal flow of moving people around her and slows her pace so as not to embarrass herself. She reaches the taxi and gets in just at seven o’clock. The taxi starts and it strikes Mrs. Dover that she hasn’t told the driver where she needs to go. The taxi brakes suddenly and throws Mrs. Drover forward as the driver turns. Face to face with the driver, she begins to scream. He “accelerate[s] without mercy” (666).