Sylvia Townsend Warner

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Standard Name: Warner, Sylvia Townsend
Birth Name: Sylvia Nora Townsend Warner
STW once commented that her career in writing was an accidental one, as her initial career was in musicology. However, she was very prolific for more than fifty years of the twentieth century over a considerable range of genres, including poetry, fourteen volumes of short stories, journal articles, radio plays, seven novels, biographies, and translations. Her letters and diaries have been published as well. Her fiction often explores supernatural themes and the twists of human psychology. She has been particularly praised for her short stories about middle-class characters, mainly women: for acute observation, clarity, precision, simplicity, and originality of language and of imagery.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Cultural formation Valentine Ackland
The issues of religion and politics caused great unhappiness between Ackland and her lifelong partner, Sylvia Townsend Warner , almost destroying their relationship. Ackland became increasingly right-wing, and their political views diverged sharply.
Mulford, Wendy. This Narrow Place. Pandora, 1988.
234-5
Dedications Valentine Ackland
VA , with Sylvia Townsend Warner , published Whether a Dove or Seagull, a collection of love poems.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. “Editorial Materials”. Sylvia Townsend Warner: Collected Poems, edited by Claire Harman, Carcanet New Press, 1982, pp. xi - xxiii; 275.
xix-xx
Harman, Claire. Sylvia Townsend Warner: A Biography. Chatto and Windus, 1989.
131
Family and Intimate relationships Valentine Ackland
VA calls Foster X in her autobiography.
Ackland, Valentine. For Sylvia: An Honest Account. Chatto and Windus, 1985.
76
They remained lovers during Ackland's marriage, and their relationship lasted until she fell in love with Sylvia Townsend Warner .
Ackland, Valentine. For Sylvia: An Honest Account. Chatto and Windus, 1985.
73
Mulford, Wendy. This Narrow Place. Pandora, 1988.
20-1
Family and Intimate relationships Valentine Ackland
VA and Sylvia Townsend Warner committed themselves to each other in a lesbian marriage.
Harman, Claire. Sylvia Townsend Warner: A Biography. Chatto and Windus, 1989.
111
Family and Intimate relationships Valentine Ackland
The three women had done political work together during the Spanish Civil War. VA 's relationship with Sylvia Townsend Warner became increasingly strained as a result of this affair with White, which continued for more...
Family and Intimate relationships Valentine Ackland
Sylvia Townsend Warner , who had originally bought the house, wished not to pressure VA , but to allow her the freedom to choose whom she preferred as a partner. She moved out to live...
Family and Intimate relationships Valentine Ackland
VA began an intimate relationship with Elizabeth Wade White , a young American friend of both Ackland and Sylvia Townsend Warner .
Harman, Claire. Sylvia Townsend Warner: A Biography. Chatto and Windus, 1989.
176ff
Family and Intimate relationships Valentine Ackland
VA lived with her lover, Elizabeth Wade White , in the same house that Ackland had shared with Sylvia Townsend Warner for many years at Lower Frome Vauchurch.
Mulford, Wendy. This Narrow Place. Pandora, 1988.
173
Harman, Claire. Sylvia Townsend Warner: A Biography. Chatto and Windus, 1989.
228-9, 234
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Taylor
As a child Betty Coles (later ET ) wrote plays (with very short scenes each demanding a new and elaborate setting) and stories. She said she always wanted to be a novelist.
Leclercq, Florence. Elizabeth Taylor. Twayne, 1985.
2
At twelve...
Intertextuality and Influence Sarah Waters
SW puts in puts in something like a regular work day when writing, but keeps going to all hours when re-writing. Despite her success, she still finds the process largely torture. And yet [s]tarting...
Literary responses Naomi Royde-Smith
Askwith (herself a published writer) defended NRS in the columns of The Times soon after the latter's death. She ranked The Delicate Situation as a novel likely to survive, and likened it to other works...
Literary responses Mary Butts
Although her work received mixed reviews, MB was generally recognized as an important if eccentric literary figure during her lifetime, and she was highly praised by other modernist writers, including Ezra Pound , Marianne Moore
Literary Setting Valentine Ackland
The book extended ideas covered in her articles for the Left Review.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend, and Valentine Ackland. I’ll Stand By You: Selected Letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland. Pinney, SusannaEditor , Pimlico, 1998.
141n1
The text's downtrodden family was based on tenants living at East Chaldon with Ackland and Sylvia Townsend Warner . Ackland added...
Occupation Valentine Ackland
VA opened an antique shop in Lower Frome Vauchurch, where she lived with Sylvia Townsend Warner .
Mulford, Wendy. This Narrow Place. Pandora, 1988.
234
politics Virginia Woolf
On 10 May Germany had invaded Holland and Belgium. In the event of an invasion of England, they could indeed expect a terrible personal fate, on account of their anti-war politics, Leonard's anti-war career and...

Timeline

21 February 1924
The first issue appeared of the New Yorkermagazine (still going strong in the twenty-first century).
Borne Back Daily.
21 February 2011
16 April 1926
The Book-of-the-Month Club , newly founded in the USA, mailed out its first monthly choice: Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner .
February 1936
The awesome trio
Laity, Paul. “The left’s ace of clubs”. Guardian Unlimited.
of political theorist Harold Laski , publisher Victor Gollancz , and writer and Labour MP John Strachey established the Left Book Club (LBC) .
18 July 1936
The Spanish Civil War began between the Republicans (including Communists) and the Fascists led by Francisco Franco .
May 1978
Virago Press issued its first Virago Modern Classics, a historically important series most though not all of which were novels.