The Last September is a 1929 novel by the Anglo-Irish writer Elizabeth Bowen, concerning life in Danielstown, Cork during the Irish War of Independence, at a country mansion.

"[6] The Last September opens in “a moment of happiness, of perfection”[7] as Sir Richard and Lady Naylor welcome their long-awaited guests, Hugo and Francie Montmorency, to their country estate, Danielstown, in Cork, Ireland.

Despite—or, in some characters’ cases, in spite of—the tensions produced by what Bowen obliquely refers to as "The Troubled Times",[8] the Montmorencys, the Naylors, as well as the Naylors' niece, Lois, and nephew, Laurence, attempt to live their lives in the aftermath of The Great War while coping with the occasionally conflicting dictates of their class's expectations and personal desires.

Preoccupied with the concerns of social obligations which must be met even as they are enacted against a backdrop of uncertainty and national unrest, the residents of Danielstown occupy themselves with tennis parties, visits, and dances, often including the wives and officers of the British Army who have been assigned to this region.

While Lois and Marda's friendship deepens, readers are also made aware of escalating violence as the fragile status quo established between the British Army, the Black and Tans, and local Irish resistance is threatened by Gerald's capture of Peter Connor, the son of an Irish family friendly with the Naylors.

Unbeknownst to the residents of Danielstown (with the single exception of Hugo), Lois and Marda's acquaintance with Ireland's national turmoil is expanded firsthand as they are confronted by an unknown individual while on an afternoon stroll through the countryside of County Cork.

After Marda Norton's departure, Lois's attention is once again firmly fixed upon both Gerald and the activities organised by the British officers’ wives.

The Naylor family estate and the other great houses are put to the torch the following February—likely by the same men who organised the attack on Gerald—their destruction reinforcing the fact the lifestyle once enjoyed by the landed Anglo-Irish gentry has been brought to an end.

Marda Norton remembers a story that causes her to "go dry inside to think of it now.”[12] This human sterility extends to or emerges from the place itself i.e. Ireland: "Talking of being virginal, do you ever notice this country?

It seemed to huddle its trees close in fright and amazement at the wide light lovely unloving country, the unwilling bosom whereon it was set.

She shut her eyes and tried – as sometimes when she was seasick, locked in misery between Holyhead and Kingstown – to be enclosed in nonentity, in some ideal no-place perfect and clear as a bubble.

[33]In Elizabeth Bowen: A Reputation in Writing, Renee C. Hoogland expounds how the relationship between the Irish and the Anglo-Irish is doomed: The sense of dislocation Laurence and Lois have in common is placed at the center of the narrative by being reflected in the novel's sociohistorical setting, metaphorically foregrounded by the violence of the Troubles.

Founded on unequal power relations embedded in an outdated class system, the Anglo-Irish community is shown to have rendered itself virtually obsolete.

As the drawn-out ending of a story in which they feel they have no part, the war yet keeps them in thrall and thwarts them in their search for the meanings of their own "historical present".

[34]Some critics like Renee C. Hoogland and Neil Corcoran believe that the novel carries satirical and comic elements that target the Anglo-Irish and English society.

Hoogland states: "In traditional generic terms, The Last September can be classified as a social comedy that satirizes the manners and the morals of the Anglo-Irish landed gentry and the English upper-middle classes.

"[35] Hoogland also points Myra Naylor's class “arrogance and bigoted nationalist views allow Bowen to display her exquisite talent for social satire.

‘They were delayed, deflected,’ it is said of Hugo’s and Marda’s lengthy failure to pay a return visit to Danielstown; but, in fact, this could be said more generally of the Anglo-Irish in the novel too.

Sensing the aridity of marriages around her, Lois astutely discerns the limitations imposed on the individual spouses by the institution of heterosexuality itself.

Wanting no part of that, she can alleviate her fear of being "locked out" by the elder generation by deriving a "feeling of mysteriousness and destination" from the thought she will "penetrate thirty years deeper ahead into Time than they could".

"[42] Despite her intentions in dissuading Lois from marrying Gerald, there is a message of women's empowerment not to adhere to "the institution of heterosexuality", if we use Hoogland's phrase cited above.

Just like Ellmann's analogy of the Greek tragedy where action takes place outside stage, the meaning in The Last September happens in ellipsis.

"[47] The Montmorencys are contemplating building a bungalow but Lady Naylor rebuffs this idea: "Don't be silly – Besides, according to that friend of the Trents, it would be blown up or burnt in a month or two.

The film stars Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Keeley Hawes, David Tennant, Lambert Wilson, Jane Birkin, and Fiona Shaw.