Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Sylvia Townsend Warner
-
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.
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.
173
Harman, Claire. Sylvia Townsend Warner: A Biography. Chatto and Windus.
228-9, 234
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.
234-5
politics
Valentine Ackland
VA
and Warner
joined the Communist Party
, believing, like many of their contemporaries, that Communism offered the best or only defence against encroaching Fascism.
Mulford, Wendy. This Narrow Place. Pandora.
55
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. “Introduction”. Letters: Sylvia Townsend Warner, edited by William Maxwell, Chatto and Windus, p. vii - xvii.
xiv
Textual Production
Valentine Ackland
From the mid-1930s until the mid-1940s, Ackland published many of her early poems in the New Republic, New Masses, and The New Yorker. At that time Edmund Wilson
, among others, appreciated...
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.
234
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. Editor Pinney, Susanna, Pimlico.
141n1
The text's downtrodden family was based on tenants living at East Chaldon with Ackland and Sylvia Townsend Warner
. Ackland added...
politics
Valentine Ackland
VA
voted Liberal (against Harold Wilson
's Labour government) in the general election, a departure from socialism which pained Warner
considerably.
Mulford, Wendy. This Narrow Place. Pandora.
235
Textual Production
Valentine Ackland
VA
experienced a spiritual crisis of total despair on 8 October 1947, and decided, at that moment, to stop drinking. This event was the beginning point for her autobiography. Warner
, privy to Ackland's diaries...
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, pp. xi - xxiii; 275.
xix-xx
Harman, Claire. Sylvia Townsend Warner: A Biography. Chatto and Windus.
131
Textual Features
Valentine Ackland
The work portrayed her new spiritual awareness that she had in the past been selfish, destructive, and insensitive to others, and her feelings of worthlessness and wastefulness. It also detailed her remorse and conflicted feelings...
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
The stories here deal with all kinds of complexity and nuance in the sisterly relationship. The collection ends, as the introduction begins, with Christina Rossetti
's Goblin Market. The nineteenth century is further represented...
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...
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. Rainbow. Alfred Knopf, 1932.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. Scenes of Childhood, and Other Stories. Chatto and Windus, 1981.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. Sketches From Nature. Clare, Son and Company, 1963.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. Some World Far From Ours; and, ’Stay, Corydon, Thou Swain’. E. Mathews and Marrot, 1929.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. Somerset. Paul Elek, 1949.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. Summer Will Show. Chatto and Windus, 1936.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend, and David Garnett. Sylvia and David: The Townsend Warner / Garnett Letters. Editor Garnett, Richard, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994.