Jane Bowles

Jane Bowles (; born Jane Sydney Auer; February 22, 1917 – May 4, 1973) was an American writer and playwright. Early life Born into a Jewish family in New York City on February 22, 1917, to Sydney Auer (father) and Claire Stajer (mother), Jane Bowles spent her childhood in Woodmere, New York, on Long Island. She had had a bad knee from birth, which was later broken from falling off a horse when she was a teenager. After knee surgery, she developed tuberculous arthritis, and her mother took her to Switzerland for treatment, where she attended boarding school. She also attended Julia Richmond High School in New York and the Stoneleigh School for Girls in Greenfield, Massachusetts. At this point in her life, she developed a passion for literature coupled with insecurities. She developed phobias related to dogs, sharks, mountains, jungles, and elevators as well as fears of being burned alive. During the mid-1930s she returned to New York, where she gravitated to the intellectual bohemia of Greenwich Village. She married the composer and writer Paul Bowles in 1938. The location of the honeymoon inspired the setting for her novel Two Serious Ladies.