Sylvia Townsend  Warner

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Lolly Willowes

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After the Death of Don Juan

The Flint Anchor

Mr Fortune's Maggot

The True Heart

The Corner That Held Them

A Novel

History

Letters 1944-1959

Exiles

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And Other Dystopian Novellas

The Portrait of My Double

The Lost Country

Mars in Aries

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The Cat

Woman in the Pillory

Vilhelm's Room

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Transfigurations

Selected Poems

This Is Not a Small Voice

Chinatown

Engagement

Wolf Solent

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Visual Politics

Art on My Mind

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Summer Will Show

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Sylvia Townsend Warner has to be one of the great under-read British novelists of the twentieth century. This, my favourite of her novels, has a disaffected Victorian wife falling for her husband's charismatic mistress, and discovering revolutionary politics along the way

It's a wildly leftist novel of love, war and death; Townsend Warner chucks the lot into her simmering story, but it remains skilfully crafted. Brilliantly entertaining and far ahead of its time

With insight, malice, exquisiteness; in its wit, its instinct for style, its drawing-room urbanities, it will suggest at one time or another the work of a Rebecca West, a Virginia Woolf, an Elinor Wylie

The story of a young English aristocrat, who - cut adrift by tragedy - is led by her husband's former mistress deep into the fervour, chaos and bloodshed of the French revolution, Summer Will Show is a fearless and wildly entertaining tale of loss and self-discovery.

'A novel of love, war and death; brilliantly entertaining and far ahead of its time' Guardian 
 
'She is my husband's mistress - and here am I, taking her out to dinner' 
 
Sophia Willoughby of Blandamer House, upstanding Victorian matriarch, has packed her errant husband off to Paris with his mistress Minna. But when tragedy throws her life off balance Sophia goes to seek him out, and instead finds herself intensely attracted to the charismatic, bohemian Minna, who leads her on a wild, chaotic adventure through a city in the throes of revolution. 
 
'One of the great under-read British novelists of the twentieth century. This is my favourite of her novels' Sarah Waters 
 
'Every page contains something brilliant, arresting or amusing, and one comes away from it staggered' Claire Harman

Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978) grew up in rural Devonshire before moving to London and writing her debut novel, Lolly Willowes (1926). With her partner Valentine Ackland, she was active in the Communist Party and served in the Red Cross during the Spanish Civil War. Her novels include Mr Fortune's Maggot, The True Heart, Summer Will Show, After the Death of Don Juan, The Corner That Held Them and The Flint Anchor.

Summer Will Show

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Sylvia Townsend Warner has to be one of the great under-read British novelists of the twentieth century. This, my favourite of her novels, has a disaffected Victorian wife falling for her husband's charismatic mistress, and discovering revolutionary politics along the way

It's a wildly leftist novel of love, war and death; Townsend Warner chucks the lot into her simmering story, but it remains skilfully crafted. Brilliantly entertaining and far ahead of its time

With insight, malice, exquisiteness; in its wit, its instinct for style, its drawing-room urbanities, it will suggest at one time or another the work of a Rebecca West, a Virginia Woolf, an Elinor Wylie

About Sylvia Townsend Warner

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