World War II and The Blitzkrieg

The short story collection The Demon Lover and Other Stories (1945), published in America as Ivy Gripped the Steps and Other Stories (1946), was written between 1941 and 1944, when Bowen worked in London at the Ministry of Information during the day and as an air-raid warden at night. She lived in London during the most intense period of the German air assault during World War II. Bombs with warheads of almost one ton began falling on Lon-don on September 8, 1944, and later that year the V-2 (revenge weapon 2) bombs began to fall. More than one thousand of these landed in Britain, killing over 2,700 people and injuring 6,500.

The setting of "The Demon Lover" is the empty streets of London, whose inhabitants have fled the destruction of their homes.

"Against the next batch of clouds, already piling up ink-dark, broken chimneys and parapets stood out. In her once...