About the Author

Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978) was a British author who began her self-proclaimed "accidental career" as a poet after she was given paper with a "particularly tempting surface." Originally a musicologist, Warner was one of the editors of the 10-volume Tudor Church Music and was also a contributor to Grove's Dictionary of Music. Lolly Willowes, her first novel, was the first selection of the Book of the Month Club. In addition to her short stories, 144 of which appeared in the New Yorker, Warner also published many collections of short fiction, novels, volumes of poetry, and works of nonfiction, including Jane Austen: 1775-1817 and the semiautobiographical, posthumously published Scenes of Childhood.