Admired, Belittled, Beloved: The Critical Reception of Sylvia Townsend Warner

The article surveys, summarises and assesses the critical reception and cultural reputation of Sylvia Townsend Warner. It recalls the very limited role women writers played in Montefiore’s own university experience as a student of English and discusses their growing prominence in the 1980s and beyond under the influence of the feminism of that time and in particular of feminist publishing houses.