{"product_id":"english-climate-wartime-stories","title":"English Climate: Wartime Stories","description":"\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/7642\/5795\/files\/for_sylvia.jpg?v=1592669057\u0026amp;width=700\" alt=\"\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePREFACE BY LYDIA FELLGETT\u003cbr\u003e240 pp\u003cbr\u003e ISBN \u003cspan itemprop=\"isbn\"\u003e9781910263273\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-kerning: none;\"\u003eSylvia Townsend Warner was born in 1893; by the time war broke out she was an established novelist, and from 1936 onwards her short stories appeared mostly in\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e(approaching 150 of them over the years, even more than Mollie Panter-Downes and Elizabeth Taylor, those other two British women writers who were promoted and revered by the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eeditors).\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-kerning: none;\"\u003eWe have collected twenty-two stories dating from 1940 to 1946 and have republished them as\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eEnglish Climate\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e(the title of one of the stories). Some were reprinted in two volumes,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eA Garland of Straw\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003ein 1943 and\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Museum of Cheats\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003ein 1947, and one or two have appeared in anthologies since; but most Persephone readers will not have read the stories before and will find them something of a revelation. Lydia Fellgett writes in her Persephone Preface: ‘These stories show a writer seeking to understand what life was like in Britain at war. She worked quickly, without the haze of nostalgia, and (unlike her novels, which moved between the centuries) they were always contemporary, reflecting the texture of what was happening at that moment in time. Her wartime stories therefore epitomise what the historian Juliet Gardiner calls “fingertip history”: a telling of an age that is so close that you can still just about touch it.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-kerning: none;\"\u003e‘Almost all the stories are set in the market towns and villages of Southern England’s countryside, with a few recurring characters providing snapshots of communities of women throughout the war. Occasionally a British reader senses a direct explanation of some quirk of specifically English culture for Warner’s American audience but, generally, the appeal they held for the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003ereadership then carries over to the appeal they hold for a twenty-first century Persephone reader today. Funny, brilliantly written, at times utterly heart-breaking, delightfully sharp, dry, intelligent and full of memorable characters: they are stories that strike the reader as somehow true as only the best fiction can. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-kerning: none;\"\u003e‘Persephone readers may have already encountered some of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s work for, compared to most other Persephone authors, she is “famous”. She was a bestseller in her lifetime, author of, for example\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eLolly Willowes\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e(1926) and\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eMr Fortune’s Maggot\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e(1927), and a recognisable name on the literary prize shortlists, and something of an eccentric public intellectual. She has also been recuperated as a “woman writer’, a “historical writer”, a “lesbian writer”, a “fantasy writer” etc. for forty years or so now. As with all other significant women writers of the twentieth century she has been compared to Virginia Woolf (shorthand for “good woman writer”) but, more often, her short stories in particular find her being compared to Jane Austen by readers and critics who understand them as amusing but essentially genteel sketches. There is an element of truth in this, yet it is far too reductive and misses the quite radical unconventionality of many of her mainly female characters.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-kerning: none;\"\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e \u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e‘\u003c\/span\u003eThe stories in\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eEnglish\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eClimate\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eare very much a companion to the other war stories published by Persephone Books. Like Mollie Panter- Downes, for example, author of\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGood Evening, Mrs Craven\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e:\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ethe Wartime Stories\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e(PB 8),\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMinnie’s Room\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e(PB 34) and\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLondon War Notes\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e(PB 111), all of which were also originally published in the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, Townsend Warner’s “concentration on the personal and the particular is well suited to the magnifying lens of the short story form” (Preface to\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGood Evening, Mrs Craven\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e). Both of these writers excelled at small, everyday experiences: a woman’s angry hoovering when her pride is hurt; the terror of picking up a cold at a Mother’s Union Meeting; gossiping do-gooders in a knitting circle. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-kerning: none;\"\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e \u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e‘\u003c\/span\u003eIt is perhaps a combination of eccentricity and formality that best characterises Warner’s work, as well as her life: she was in some ways fiercely conservative, for example she was always a believer in excellent manners. But then in her sexuality and her politics she was a true radical – living openly with a woman as a Communist when both of those things were unheard of to most of British society. Hers was therefore an exceptional life. And yet it was also full of all the everyday dullness of a middle-class woman’s existence in the middle of the twentieth century.’\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEndpaper\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"endpaper-caption\"\u003eEndpapers are taken from Sailors, a 1940-1 Calico Printers Association dress fabric. In a private collection.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"endpaper-caption\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePicture Caption\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"endpaper-caption\"\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003eRest Centre and Communal Feeding; WRVS archive\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sylvia Townsend Warner","offers":[{"title":"None","offer_id":54098799690035,"sku":"eyp1789694889345","price":31.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Tissue\/Endpaper","offer_id":54098799722803,"sku":"rar1789694889346","price":32.64,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cambridge Imprint paper","offer_id":54098799755571,"sku":"evd1789694889347","price":36.21,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Reusable fabric napkin","offer_id":54098799788339,"sku":"jpk1789694889348","price":43.55,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0989\/0578\/4627\/files\/english-climate-wartime-stories_1.jpg?v=1789694896","url":"https:\/\/sandstepclad.shop\/products\/english-climate-wartime-stories","provider":"My Store","version":"1.0","type":"link"}