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
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...
Residence Valentine Ackland
VA and Sylvia Townsend Warner lived in Miss Green's cottage at Chaldon Herring.
Mulford, Wendy. This Narrow Place. Pandora.
35
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.
176ff
Travel Valentine Ackland
Sylvia Townsend Warner and Ackland travelled together to New York in May 1939 to attend the Third Congress of American Writers .
Mulford, Wendy. This Narrow Place. Pandora.
135
Their postwar holidays included trips to Italy in February 1949, and to...
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.
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

Timeline

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Texts

Warner, Sylvia Townsend, and Valentine Ackland. Whether a Dove or Seagull. Viking, 1933.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. Winter in the Air, and Other Stories. Chatto and Windus, 1955.