Sylvia Townsend Warner

Claire Harman turns her skilled and thoughtful biographer's eye to unusual life of Sylvia Townsend Warner.

Sylvia Townsend Warner was a twentieth century English novelist, poet and active member of the Communist party in Britain. She also spent time in her early years as a musicologist and composer, and lived the majority of her adult life in an openly homosexual relationship with her lover Valentine Ackland. This biography makes use of previously unpublished diaries from both Sylvia and Valentine to draw an intimate and lively picture of one of the twentieth century's most fascinating lesser known writers.