Editorial

The contents of this issue are mainly drawn from the rich archival resources of the Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland Archive at the Dorset History Centre in Dorchester. The history of the Archive and its future possibilities were vividly described in articles in the 2024 Journal by Judith Bond and Sam Johnston.¹

The most substantial item in this issue is a gathering of three Elfin stories unpublished until this year. Warner turned to the writing of these supernatural fictions in the final decade of her life and published Kingdoms of Elfin in January 1977, a year before her death; but she planned a second volume, so the book was not intended as consciously valedictory. Indeed, Warner was mortified when William Shawn, the editor of The New Yorker, decided in April 1976 that the magazine would not publish any more Elfin stories and ruefully responded with one of her favourite proverbial sayings, ‘vieux singe ne plaît à personne’ (an old monkey delights nobody). But the magazine had already published 15 Elfin pieces, so she had quite a good run with stories that were far from The New Yorker’s usual territory. Nor did the magazine drop Warner entirely: it printed three new non-Elfin stories by her in 1976 and 1977. The Elfin stories published here for the first time are ‘Snipe’ and ‘The Alien Element’, while ‘The Pursuit and the End’ will appear in the Times Literary Supplement on 12 December 2025.

The Journal also includes two dramatic curiosities by Warner. The first is the libretto for an opera buffa, The Codicil, which Warner apparently liked a good deal, Ackland less so. It is a virtuoso comedy with touches of Gilbert and Sullivan and of Oscar Wilde, full of merriment about social falsity making the world go round, including the Victorian marital one. The other piece is the beginning of a play titled Iphigenia, in an altogether different mode. Written and set in 1947, it takes place on a beach in the Azores. A group of Nazi soldiers, thinking they are isolated from the rest of the world by an electric barrier, pass the time of day, listen to propaganda on the wireless and speculate about the history of the Jews. The combination of boredom and political threat might be thought to anticipate the plays of Pinter a decade later.

The Warner and Ackland Archive is also a main source for two pieces that draw on Warner’s life and contacts. The first is Judith Stinton’s exploration of Warner’s friendship with Anne Moxon, the old woman who was her neighbour and friend in Chaldon Herring in the early 1930s. The article discusses three poems in which Warner commemorates and celebrates ‘Grannie Moxon’ and includes the full text of one of Warner’s longest poems, the remarkable ‘Lament for Anne Moxon’, not published until now. It is followed by another piece drawing on Warner’s own life – some notes about her childhood that she dictated to Valentine Ackland in 1965. They record her early memories of the houses where she was brought up, the schooling she received (most of it at home) and her holiday visits in England, Wales and Ireland.

The reminiscent mode continues with an abridged chapter taken from Jean Starr Untermeyer’s memoir Private Collection (1965), previously published only in the United States. The chapter is titled ‘Leaves from a Dorset Diary’ and principally concerns Untermeyer’s longstanding friendship with Warner and Ackland. Untermeyer also touches on her friendships with Siegfried Sassoon and figures from the Powys circle.

The Journal ends with a brief tribute by Judith Bond to one of the Warner Society’s founder members, Eileen Johnson. News of Eileen’s death reached us shortly before the Journal went to press and Judith Bond writes of the affection she inspired and the crucial role she played in steering the Society and setting its tone.

Next year will mark the centenary of Lolly Willowes. To commemorate the occasion, the Society is organising a two-day conference to be held in London on 29–30 May on the theme of ‘Lolly Willowes at 100: Sylvia Townsend Warner, Religion, and the Supernatural’. The keynote talk will be given by Adam Mars-Jones and there will be a performance of excerpts from Michael Alec Rose’s chamber opera Lolly Willowes. Further details of the event can be found on the Society website² and we hope that many members of the Society will be able to attend. The 2026 issue of the Journal will include a selection of papers from the conference, as well as Harriet Baker’s Sylvia Townsend Warner Society Lecture, given at UCL on 22 October 2025.

Notes

1. Judith Bond, ‘The Archive of Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland’, The Journal of the Sylvia Townsend Warner Society 24, no. 1 (2024), pp. 32–40; Sam Johnston, ‘The Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland Archive at the Dorset History Centre: Current and Future Plans’, The Journal of the Sylvia Townsend Warner Society 24, no. 1 (2024), pp. 41–8.⮭
2. Hannah Berry, ‘Lolly Willowes at 100: Sylvia Townsend Warner, Religion, and the Supernatural’, website of The Sylvia Townsend Warner Society, 20 July 2025.⮭

References