Audiobooks by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Sylvia Townsend Warner: A BBC Radio Collection: Including Lolly Willowes & The True Heart

"BBC radio productions of the works of Sylvia Townsend Warner - plus bonus programmes about the author herself Sylvia Townsend Warner was a prolific author of novels, short stories and poetry, who also wrote a biography of T. H. White, translated Proust and was an authority on Tudor church music. A sharp, insightful storyteller, she was one of the 20th Century's most acute observers of English mores, and her work is infused with subversive themes reflecting her feminist and Marxist views. This comprehensive anthology includes dramatisations of her two best-known novels, beginning with her 1926 debut, Lolly Willowes, which was shortlisted for the Prix Femina and launched her literary career. Louise Brealey stars in this joyously comic tale of a respectable, middle-class spinster who finally finds fulfilment in life by taking up witchcraft. Next up is The True Heart, an imaginative retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth. Set in 1873, it tells the story of orphaned maidservant Sukey, who falls in love, but is cruelly parted from her beloved. Believing that only Queen Victoria can help, she sets off on a heroic journey to see her... Tilly Vosburgh stars, with Mick Ford and Theresa Streatfeild. These are followed by three short stories: 'The Proper Circumstances' (read by Joanna McCallum), 'One Thing Leading to Another' (read by Margaret Tyzack) and 'Oxenhope' (read by Edward Petherbridge). Also featured is the Radio 4 series Stories of Sylvia Townsend Warner, comprising five short tales - 'Flora', 'A Scent of Roses', 'English Mosaic', 'Furnivall's Hoopoe' and 'The Listening Woman' - all read by Penelope Wilton. Concluding our collection are two bonus programmes: Comrade Ackland and I, Frances Bingham's original drama based on the true story of Sylvia Townsend Warner and her partner, poet Valentine Ackland; and The Diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner, in which Irene Sutcliffe reads five extracts from the journal kept by the novelist from 1927 to her death in 1978. Contents Lolly Willowes The True Heart 'The Proper Circumstances' 'One Thing Leading to Another' 'Oxenhope' 'Flora' 'A Scent of Roses' 'English Mosaic' 'Furnivall's Hoopoe' 'The Listening Woman' Comrade Ackland and I The Diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner First published 1926 (Lolly Willowes), 1929 (The True Heart), 1944 ('The Proper Circumstances'), 1962 ('One Thing Leading to Another'), 1964 ('English Mosaic'), 1966 ('Oxenhope'), 1969 ('Furnivall's Hoopoe), 1972 ('A Scent of Roses', 'The Listening Woman'), 1977 ('Flora') © 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd"

Sylvia Townsend Warner (Author), Edward Petherbridge, Full Cast, Helen O'hara, Irene Sutcliffe, Joanna Mccallum, Joanne Mitchell, Louise Brealey, Margaret Tyzack, Mick Ford, Penelope Wilton, Tilly Vosburgh (Narrator)

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Lolly Willowes: Or the Loving Huntsman

"In Lolly Willowes, Sylvia Townsend Warner tells of an aging spinster's struggle to break away from her controlling family—a classic story that she treats with cool feminist intelligence, while adding a dimension of the supernatural and strange. Warner is one of the outstanding and indispensable mavericks of twentieth-century literature, a writer to set beside Djuna Barnes and Jane Bowles, with a subversive genius that anticipates the fantastic flights of such contemporaries as Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson."

Sylvia Townsend Warner (Author), Sarah Nichols (Narrator)

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Lolly Willowes: Penguin Modern Classics

"Brought to you by Penguin. Lolly Willowes, so gentle and accommodating, has depths no one suspects. When she suddenly announces that she is leaving London and moving, alone, to the depths of the countryside, her overbearing relatives are horrified. But Lolly has a greater, far darker calling than family: witchcraft. 'The book I'll be pressing into people's hands forever . . . It tells the story of a woman who rejects the life that society has fixed for her in favour of freedom ... tips suddenly into extraordinary, lucid wildness' Helen McDonald 'Witty, eerie, tender ... her prose, in its simple, abrupt evocations, has something preternatural about it' John Updike 'A great shout of life and individuality ... an act of defiance that gladdens the soul' Guardian © Sylvia Townsend Warner 1926 (P) Penguin Audio 2021"

Sylvia Townsend Warner (Author), Olivia Darnley (Narrator)

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The Corner That Held Them: Penguin Modern Classics

"Brought to you by Penguin. The nuns who enter a medieval Norfolk convent are told to renounce the world, but the world still finds ways to trouble them, whether it is through fire, floods, pestilence, a collapsing spire, jealous rivalries, a priest with a secret or a plague of caterpillars. As we follow their daily lives over three centuries, this masterpiece of historical fiction re-creates a world run by women. 'One of the great British novels of the twentieth century: a narrative of extraordinary reach, power and beauty' Sarah Waters 'As an act of imagined history this novel has few rivals. Also, as it happens, a work of high, frequent comedy' George Steiner, The Times Literary Supplement 'Spellbinding . . . One starts rereading as soon as one has reached the last page' Sunday Times 'Magnificent' Philip Hensher, Daily Telegraph © Sylvia Townsend Warner 1948 (P) Penguin Audio 2021"

Sylvia Townsend Warner (Author), Emma Gregory (Narrator)

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[Hebrew] - לולי וילוז

"מה קורה כשאישה צעירה באנגליה בתחילת המאה העשרים מתחמקת מכל חתן שמציעים לה ומסרבת בקביעות ליישר קו עם בנות גילה, כלומר להתמסד ולהפוך לאם ולרעיה על פי כללי הספר? במקרה של לורה וילוז, כלום לא קורה והיא חיה בשלווה בבית אביה האהוב, יתומה מאם. אך בגיל עשרים ושמונה, כשאביה מת, לורה נאלצת לעבור ללונדון ולחיות בבית אחיה ומשפחתו: לורה הופכת ל'דודה לולי' ומופקדת על הטיפול באחייניה כחלק ממשק הבית. עשרים שנה חולפות, הילדים התבגרו, ואט אט מתחוורת בפני לולי, עתה בת ארבעים ושבע, התמונה שבתוכה היא חיה: שקיעה מוחלטת בשגרת חיים מוכרת ובלתי ניתנת לערעור. מכאן אנו מצטרפים לגישושים של לורה וילוז אחר טבעה האמיתי, שאותו היא תמצא כשתכרות ברית עם חתלתול, נציגו של השטן, ותהפוך למכשפה. 'לולי וילוז' הוא ספר ביכוריה של סילביה טאונסנד וורנר, שזכה להצלחה מיידית עם פרסומו. בעט חכמה, שנונה ומלאת דמיון פורצת טאונסנד וורנר את גבולות הסדר החברתי וסוללת את דרכה של וירג'יניה וולף אל רעיון ה'חדר משלך'."

Sylvia Townsend Warner (Author), רנה ורבין (Narrator)

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