Sylvia Townsend Warner

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Sylvia Townsend Warner 1893–1978, English novelist and poet. Her first published work was poetry, The Espalier (1925), but she became more generally known with two novels of gentle fantasy, Lolly Willowes (1926) and Mr. Fortune's Maggot (1927). In The Corner That Held Them (1948), generally regarded as her masterpiece, she told the story of a 13th-century convent with a scholar's knowledge of the period, in a style that combined a poetic sensibility with wit and irony. For many years Warner lived a retiring life in Dorset with Valentine Ackland. She wrote several volumes of short stories, including Swans on an Autumn River (1966), The Innocent and the Guilty (1971), and Kingdoms of Elfin (1977); and a highly regarded biography of T. H. White (1967). Her Collected Poems were published in 1983.

Bibliography: See her diaries, ed. by C. Harman (1994); I'll Stand by You (1999), letters to Valentine Ackland, ed. by S. Pinney, and The Element of Lavishness: Letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner and William Maxwell, 1938–1978 (2001), ed. by M. Steinman; partial biography by W. Mulford (1988) and biography by C. Harman (1989).

Warner, Sylvia Townsend (1893–1978), novelist and poet. Her first volume of verse, The Espalier (1925), was followed by several others, including Whether a Dove or a Seagull (1933), written in collaboration with her friend and companion Valentine Ackland; the posthumous Twelve Poems (1980); and Collected Poems (1982). Her original voice is heard more strongly in her novels, which include Lolly Willowes (1926), a tale of the supernatural; Mr Fortune's Maggot (1927), which describes the visit of ex-clerk missionary Timothy Fortune to the remote South Sea island of Fanua, where he makes only one doubtful convert and in the process loses his own faith through his love of the islanders; and The True Heart (1929), which retells the story of Cupid and Psyche through the medium of a Victorian orphan, Sukey Bond. Her later works include a biography of T. H. White (1967), and various collections of short stories. Her Diaries, ed. Claire Harman, were published in 1994.