The Anglo-Irish novelist Elizabeth Bowen and the Canadian diplomat Charles Ritchie met in London, England, in 1941; they then embarked on a love affair that lasted until her death in 1973. Most of the time the lovers were apart, snatching a few days together when they could, but they wrote constantly to each other, letters in which she poured out her heart to him about their affair, about her money troubles, about friends, politics, and literature. Ritchie's letters back have not survived, but he wrote candidly about Bowen in his diaries. Some descriptions of sex. 2008.