Warner, Sylvia Townsend

(1893-1978)

   Born in Harrow, the daughter of a schoolmaster at Harrow School, she was educated privately and worked in a munitions factory during World War I. From 1918 to 1928 she was a member of the editorial board of Tudor Church Music (Oxford University Press, 1923-1929) and was also a contributor to Grove's Dictionary of Music. In 1927, she became guest critic of the New York Herald Tribute. A committed writer of the left, she worked for the Red Cross in the Spanish Civil War alongside her lifelong partner, Valentine Ackland, who died in 1969. She published some 140 short stories in the New Yorker and published eight novels, the last, Kingdoms of Elfin, in 1977, and eight collections of short stories. In 1958 she translated Contre Sainte-Beuve by Marcel Proust (1871-1922). She died at Maldon Newton, Dorset. Some of her poetry publications: The Espalier, 1925. Whether a Dove Or Seagull, 1933 (with Valentine Ackland). Collected Poems, 1982. Some of her poems: "Astrophysics," "Journey to Barcelona," "Killing No Murder," "Song from the Bride of Smithfield," "The Absence," "Under the Sudden Blue."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Microsoft Encarta 2006 (DVD). Microsoft Corporation, 2006. Modern British Poetry. 7th rev. ed. Louis Untermeyer, ed. Harcourt, Brace, 1962. The National Portrait Gallery (www. npg.org.uk). Poems Between Women: Four Centuries of Love, Romantic Friendship, and Desire. Emma Donoghue, ed. Columbia University Press, 1997. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Book of Sonnets. John Fuller, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Sylvia Townsend Warner Society Homepage (http://www.townsendwarner.com/bibliography.htm). Women's Poetry of the 1930s: A Critical Anthology. Jane Dowson, ed. Routledge, 1966.