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
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
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
Author summary
Valentine Ackland
VA
published very little in her lifetime, and has gone largely unrecognised since. Her lifelong partner, Sylvia Townsend Warner
, was very supportive of Ackland and helped her to get her writing into print. This...
Publishing
Valentine Ackland
For Sylvia: An Honest Account, VA
's confessional memoir, was finally published by Chatto and Windus
, after the deaths of both Ackland and Sylvia Townsend Warner
, with a foreword by Bea Howe
.
Harman, Claire. Sylvia Townsend Warner: A Biography. Chatto and Windus.
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...
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...
Textual Production
Valentine Ackland
VA
finished writing her painful confessional memoir, For Sylvia: An Honest Account, and gave it to her lifelong partner, Sylvia Townsend Warner
.
Ackland, Valentine. For Sylvia: An Honest Account. Chatto and Windus.
29
Harman, Claire. Sylvia Townsend Warner: A Biography. Chatto and Windus.
226
Textual Production
Valentine Ackland
Not until 1998 were any of VA
's letters published. In that year about a third of the huge correspondence exchanged between her and her longtime lover was published as I'll Stand By You: Selected...
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.