John Bowen belongs to that small group of playwrights who, since the 1950s, have undertaken to write serious original dramas intended for performance on television. Since Bowen shifted his attention from the novel to the play in the 1960s, he has divided his efforts more or less equally between the theater and television, writing some plays specifically for the stage and others specifically for television, then adapting some of his television plays for subsequent performance in the theater.

John Griffith Bowen was born in Calcutta, India, and at the age of six was brought to England, where he attended British boarding schools and spent his holidays shuttled among grandparents and other close relatives. He returned to India during World War II, serving as a captain in the Mahratha Light Infantry from 1943 to 1947. Admitted to Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1947, he was obliged to delay his entrance until a space...