Sylvia Townsend Warner Summary

Sylvia Townsend Warner's first novel, Lolly Willowes; or, The Loving Huntsman (1926), was the first selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, her second novel, Mr. Fortune's Maggot (1927), an early sel... Read more

In the following excerpted review, Howard contends that “though the individual pieces in Scenes of Childhood are charming, bright, and well-turned, I think that book as a whole does Miss Warner... Read more

In the following review, Feaver considers Warner's poetic output, contending that “more real cause of regret, however, considering the strangely compelling quality of her best work, is t... Read more

In the following review, Panter-Downes offers a laudatory review of Warner's collected letters as well as an overview of the author's life and work. Some years before she died, in 197... Read more

In the following excerpt, Vannatta provides a positive assessment of The Museum of Cheats. Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978) should best be remembered as a short story writer, although she was a p... Read more

In the following favorable review of Selected Stories, Yardley maintains that however diverse Warner's stories “may be in tone and settings, her stories are all noteworthy for their grac... Read more

In the following essay, Castle discusses Warner's Summer Will Show as a lesbian novel. What is a lesbian fiction? According to what we might call the ‘Queen Victoria Principle’... Read more

In the following review, Chisholm offers a favorable review of The Diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner. In 1929 Sylvia Townsend Warner described in her diary how she held a friend's baby on he... Read more

In the following essay, Steinman considers The Elements of Lavishness a testament to the true friendship between Warner and editor William Maxwell. Between 1938 and 1978, the inimitable writers Syl... Read more

In the following review of A Spirit Rises, Faverty appreciates Warner's ability to create an atmosphere in which the elements of her story seem believable. In the title story of this collec... Read more

In the following review, which was originally published in The New Republic in 1966, Updike comments on the "genius" of Warner's writing. The stories of Sylvia Townsend Warner... Read more

In the following interview, which was conducted in 1975, Warner discusses her writing career and political views. [Sylvia Townsend Warner]: When did I begin to write? I was led away by paper. I&#x... Read more

In the following review, Smith says that while Warner is dextrous and sharp in her presentation of the elfin world to the reader, behind it all "the reader senses the author's fundamenta... Read more

In the following essay, Cavaliero lauds Warner's literary skill and "ability to celebrate the singular without declining into singularity. " Sylvia Townsend Warner may have be... Read more

The critic offers a mixed assessment of the stories in A Garland of Straw. There have been several unusually interesting volumes of short stories in recent months. In most of them the stories repre... Read more

In the excerpt below, Crossley compares the elfin worlds of Warner and J. R. R. Tolkien. Among the folklore traditions on the origin of elves is the notion that they are the lost children of Adam a... Read more

In the following excerpt, Trilling claims Warner is "an accomplished practitioner of her craft," but finds fault with artistic practices of the generation of writers to which Warner belo... Read more

In the review below, Holsaert gives a favorable assessment of the stories in The Museum of Cheats, saying that Warner's "skilled guidance" allows ordinary characters to be "... Read more

In the following review, Hay praises Winter in the Air, and Other Stories, calling it "rewarding and stimulating." Charlton Mackrell, impaled on the shaft of Sylvia Townsend Warner&#x... Read more

In the following excerpt from a review of Winter in the Air, Arrowsmith describes Warner as being "an almost flawless writer" within a narrow range of fiction. Within severe limits, ... Read more

Critical Essay by Paul Gray In Kingdoms of Elfin,… Sylvia Townsend Warner … never condescends to an ethereal race that views mortals as "unfailingly serious and unfailingly absur... Read more

Critical Essay by John Updike The late Miss Warner, whose more than half century of brilliantly varied and superbly self-possessed literary production never won her the flaming place in the heavens o... Read more

Critical Essay by Vicki Feaver Written, Peter Pears explains in his preface, during the last years of her life, most of the poems [in Sylvia Townsend Warner's Twelve Poems] are concerned with ... Read more