3.5
The Corner That Held Them
ByPublisher Description
The author of Lolly Willowes recreates life in a convent during the era of the Black Death in this spellbinding work of medieval historical fiction.
“One of the great British novels of the 20th century: a narrative of extraordinary reach, power and beauty.” —Sarah Waters, New York Times–bestselling author of The Paying Guests
In a Benedictine convent of no great note, the nuns do their chores, and seek to maintain and improve the fabric of their house and chapel, and struggle with each other and with themselves. The story that emerges is a picture of a world run by women—but also a stirring, disturbing, witty, and utterly entrancing portrait of a community.
What is the life of a community and how does it support, or constrain, a real humanity? How do we live through it and it through us?
Set in the era of the Black Death, Sylvia Townsend Warner’s The Corner That Held Them is a historical novel like no other.
“One of the great British novels of the 20th century: a narrative of extraordinary reach, power and beauty.” —Sarah Waters, New York Times–bestselling author of The Paying Guests
In a Benedictine convent of no great note, the nuns do their chores, and seek to maintain and improve the fabric of their house and chapel, and struggle with each other and with themselves. The story that emerges is a picture of a world run by women—but also a stirring, disturbing, witty, and utterly entrancing portrait of a community.
What is the life of a community and how does it support, or constrain, a real humanity? How do we live through it and it through us?
Set in the era of the Black Death, Sylvia Townsend Warner’s The Corner That Held Them is a historical novel like no other.
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About Sylvia Townsend Warner
Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893–1978) was a poet, short-story writer, and novelist, as well as an authority on early English music and a member of the Communist Party. Her first novel, Lolly Willowes (available from NYRB Classics), appeared in 1926 and was the first ever Book-of-the-Month Club selection. Over the course of her long career, Warner published six more novels, seven books of poetry, a translation of Proust, fourteen volumes of short stories, and a biography of T.H. White. NYRB also publishes her novels Mr. Fortune and Summer Will Show.
Other books by Sylvia Townsend Warner
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