Sylvia Townsend Warner

Biography

Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893–1978) was an English novelist, poet, and short story writer known for her elegant, unconventional fiction. She worked on a major edition of Tudor church music before publishing her first novel, Lolly Willowes (1926), which became a bestseller and was the first selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club. Warner was a committed socialist and served in the Spanish Civil War. Her fiction is characterized by wit, subversive feminism, and a blend of realism with the fantastical. She published seven novels, over 140 stories for The New Yorker, and several volumes of poetry.