The Hotel - Paperback

by Elizabeth Bowen (Author), Yiyun Li (Introduction by)

An awkward young woman develops an "unsuitable attachment" to a beautiful, worldly widow in a queer-coded novel set in a luxurious hotel on the Italian Riviera. With an introduction by Yiyun Li, winner of the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Memoir or Autobiography.

Sydney Warren is a young, rebellious women in her twenties, uninterested in marriage and a puzzle to her friends and family. She becomes infatuated with Mrs. Kerr, an older and very beautiful widow--and the two women's close friendship swiftly becomes the subject of gossip at the hotel. But when Mrs. Kerr's young son arrives to visit his mother, the balance of Sydney and Mrs. Kerr's relationship is upset: a drama that plays out in front of an array of delightful, fascinating minor characters.

Originally published in 1927, Elizabeth Bowen's The Hotel is a debut novel that explores social and emotional relationships and one young woman's coming-of-age.

Author Biography

Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973) was an Irish-British novelist and short-story writer who often wrote about fraught and unfulfilling relationships among the upper-middle class. Her most well-known novels include The Hotel (1927), The Death of the Heart (1938), and The Heat of the Day (1948).