Decades after her divorce, a woman returns to the village of her tumultuous marriage. Another waits anxiously in a café before eloping to Paris. A murder raises fears of blackmail.
Sylvia Townsend Warner is a tragicomic chronicler of the heart’s entanglements, from marriages and affairs to widowhood, and a champion of outsiders. Witty and subversive, the stories in Winter in the Air meld tradition and transgression, with secret sins as much a feature of English life as eccentric aunts, country houses and parish churches.
‘Diminutive masterpieces . . . Hand yourself over to be enchanted.’ Guardian
‘Glinting perfection’ The Times
Distant Harmonies
Recently I was given a copy of The Music at Long Verney: Twenty Stories by Sylvia Townsend Warner. It was a revelation. Years ago, when I was a struggling art student, I read and loved her novels,...
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It’s always strange to think how easily you might not have met that someone: a bus that arrived on time, or a last drink at the bar, and it might all have been quite different. Our meetings with...
Read moreFirst Class Mail
During my early years as a bookseller, much of each day’s business depended on the post: not just brown envelopes enclosing cheques or less welcome envelopes with publishers’ bills, but orders...
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