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
Residence Valentine Ackland
In 1937, Ackland and Warner moved to Lower Frome Vauchurch on the river Frome, near Maiden Newton, where they lived for the rest of their lives.
Mulford, Wendy. This Narrow Place. Pandora.
40-3
Early in the Second World War, from...
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.
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...
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
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...

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.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. Sylvia Townsend Warner: Collected Poems. Editor Harman, Claire, Carcanet New Press, 1982.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. Sylvia Townsend Warner: Selected Poems. Carcanet Press, 1985.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. T. H. White: A Biography. Jonathan Cape with Chatto and Windus, 1967.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. The Cat’s Cradle Book. Viking, 1940.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. The Corner That Held Them. Chatto and Windus, 1948.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. The Diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner. Editor Harman, Claire, Chatto and Windus, 1994.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. The Espalier. Chatto and Windus, 1925.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. The Flint Anchor. Chatto and Windus, 1954.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. The Innocent and the Guilty: Stories. Chatto and Windus, 1971.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. The Kingdoms of Elfin. Chatto and Windus, 1977.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. The Maze. Fleuron, 1928.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. The Museum of Cheats, and Other Stories. Chatto and Windus, 1947.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. “The People Have No Generals”. Our Time, Vol.
1
, No. 1, Newport Publications.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. The Salutation. Chatto and Windus, 1932.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. The True Heart. Chatto and Windus, 1929.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. This Our Brother. Lanston Monotype Corporation, 1930.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. Time Importuned. Chatto and Windus, 1928.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend, and Sir Peter Pears. Twelve Poems. Chatto and Windus, 1980.