Sylvia Townsend Warner

Author profile

born

December 06, 1893 in Harrow on the Hill, London, The United Kingdom

died

May 01, 1978

gender

female

website

http://www.townsendwarner.com/society.php

genre

Literature & Fiction, Biographies & Memoirs, Poetry

About this author

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Sylvia Townsend Warner was born at Harrow on the Hill, the only child of George Townsend Warner and his wife Eleanora (Nora) Hudleston. Her father was a house-master at Harrow School and was, for many years, associated with the prestigious Harrow History Prize which was renamed the Townsend Warner History Prize in his honour, after his death in 1916. As a child, Sylvia seemingly enjoyed an idyllic childhood in rural Devonshire, but was strongly affected by her father's death.
She moved to London and worked in a munitions factory at the outbreak of World War I. She was friendly with a number of the "Bright Young Things" of the 1920s. Her first major success was the novel Lolly Willowes. In 1923 Warner met T. F. Powys whose writing influenced...more

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Books by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Average rating: 3.93 · 1,404 ratings · 210 reviews · 48 distinct works

	Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner, Alison Lurie (Introduction) 3.78 avg rating — 359 ratings — published 1926 — 18 editions	My rating:
	Mr. Fortune's Maggot by Sylvia Townsend Warner, Adam Mars-Jones (Introduction) 3.55 avg rating — 82 ratings — 10 editions	My rating:
	Kingdoms of Elfin 3.80 avg rating — 61 ratings — published 1977 — 6 editions	My rating:
	Summer Will Show 3.47 avg rating — 62 ratings — published 1936 — 6 editions	My rating:
	The Element of Lavishness: Letters of William Maxwell and Sylvia Townsend Warner, 1938-1978 by Sylvia Townsend Warner, William Maxwell 4.35 avg rating — 34 ratings — published 2000 — 2 editions	My rating:
	The Corner That Held Them 4.15 avg rating — 33 ratings — published 1948 — 5 editions	My rating:
	The Music at Long Verney: Short Stories by Sylvia Townsend Warner, Michael A. Steinman (Editor) 4.09 avg rating — 23 ratings — published 2000 — 3 editions	My rating:
	The Diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner by Sylvia Townsend Warner, Claire Harman (Editor) 4.06 avg rating — 16 ratings — published 1994 — 2 editions	My rating:
	T. H. White: A Biography 3.91 avg rating — 11 ratings — published 1967 — 2 editions	My rating:
	After the Death of Don Juan 3.38 avg rating — 13 ratings — published 1938 — 3 editions	My rating:

More books by Sylvia Townsend Warner…

Quotes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

“One doesn’t become a witch to run around being helpful either…. It’s to escape all that – to have a life of one’s own, not an existence doled out to you by others, charitable refuse of their thoughts, so many ounces of stale bread of life a day.”
― Sylvia Townsend Warner

5 people liked it

“She was heavier than he expected - women always are.”
― Sylvia Townsend Warner, Kingdoms of Elfin

tags: expectations , humour , weight , women

3 people liked it

“It is best as one grows older to strip oneself of possessions, to shed oneself downward like a tree, to be almost wholly earth before one dies.”
― Sylvia Townsend Warner, Lolly Willowes

tags: aging , death-and-dying

3 people liked it

See all Sylvia Townsend Warner's quotes »

Polls

Vote for our May Group Read (1900-1940)

Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham (1919)

9 votes, 31.0%

Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves (1929)

8 votes, 27.6%

Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1936)

4 votes, 13.8%

Precious Bane by Mary Gladys Meredith Webb (1924)

3 votes, 10.3%

The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham (1929)

3 votes, 10.3%

Passing by Nella Larsen (1929)

2 votes, 6.9%

29 total votes

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