Sylvia Townsend Warner

Born in Harrow on the Hill in 1893, Sylvia Townsend Warner was an English novelist, poet, and musicologist. She began her career researching and editing Tudor Church Music before publishing her first poetry collection, The Espalier, in 1925. Her first novel, Lolly Willowes, followed in 1926 and established her as an original voice in modern British fiction.

Warner’s writing often challenged social and religious conventions, explored women’s independence and sexuality, and drew richly on the natural world. Her major works include Mr Fortune’s Maggot, Summer Will Show, The Corner That Held Them, and the supernatural story collection Kingdoms of Elfin. She spent much of her adult life with the poet Valentine Ackland, and the two were active in anti-fascist and Communist causes during the 1930s. Warner died in Dorset in 1978.