Valentine Ackland, page 38
– divorce 28
– heterosexual experiences 26–27, 29
– pregnancy (Tamar) 27–29
– miscarriage 28–29
– early poetry 31
– takes name Valentine 21–23
– as artists’ model 32
– first meets STW 31–32
– affair with Anna May Wong 63
– affair with Nancy Cunard 33
– affair with Dorothy Warren 34–37, 59, 64, 67–68, 87
– holiday affairs 59
– visits brothels 59–60
– tea-parties chez Powys 31, 54
– passes as a man 31, 54, 55, 105
– friendship with STW 60, 64
– shows STW poems 65
– falls in love with STW 66–67, 68–71
– moves into Miss Green’s Cottage 71
– becomes STW’s lover 78
– early days of love affair with STW 78–86, 88, 89, 93–94, 96–97
– brawl with Dorothy Warren 87
– exchanges marriage vows with STW 86
– writes early love poems to STW 85–88, 101
– vicarage libel case 77–78, 103, 105–6
– moves to Frankfort Manor with STW 95–97
– publishes Whether a Dove or Seagull with STW 97–102
– moves back to Chaldon 104
– becomes Communist 104–105
– works for CP 107–110, 114–124
– volunteers MG car for CP use 105
– MI5 surveillance 105–107, 109–110, 152–153, 206, 208, 245, 279
– writes Communist poetry 108, 119
– unfaithful to STW (Ingeborg, Evelyn) 111–113
– volunteers in Spanish Civil War 114–119
– reports from Spain for Daily Worker 116
– in Spain with Writers’ Congress 122–124
– publishes Country Conditions 120
– illness prevents drive to Spain for CP 120–121
– moves to Frome Vauchurch with STW 125–126
– works at Tythrop House Orphanage for Basque refugees 127
– begins affair with EWW 132–135
– goes to America with STW and EWW 135
– at Writer’s Congress in New York 135–137
– behaves badly in America 136, 138
– unhappy with EWW in America 136–141
– poems about EWW affair 137–139
– visits Warren, Connecticut 137–139
– visits Celo, North Carolina 139–140
– returns to England on outbreak of WWII 142–143
– attitude to war 146–147, 151–152
– learns of EWW’s affair with Evelyn Holahan 147–148
– stays with Ruth at Winterton 148–151
– war work as typist 152–153
– war work for Civil Defence 156–157
– MI5 blacklist for war work 153
– war work as doctor’s secretary-dispenser 161–162
– depression during WWII 154, 159–160, 198, 201, 207–208, 210, 211–213
– wartime poetry 154, 157, 160
– poor health after WWII 165
– spiritual quest 167–168, 171–172, 214–215, 224–225
– stops drinking alcohol 169–170
– works for local doctor 168
– suspects breast cancer 177–178
– affair with EWW resumes 174–177
– STW moves out of Frome Vauchurch 181–185
– unhappy experiences with EWW 182–187
– STW returns 185
– affair with EWW ends 189–190
– post-mortems of EWW affair 134, 155–156, 160–161, 186–187, 191, 215
– aftermath of EWW affair 190–191, 197–203
– stays at Great Eye Folly with STW 192–196
– poems/stories broadcast on BBC 195, 200, 207
– obsession with death 53, 196–197, 234
– perceptions of ageing 196–197, 226–228, 250
– depression about writing 198, 207–208, 223–224, 247–249
– feels despair / considers suicide 201, 210, 212
– disappointment in Soviet Communism 208, 242–243
– later meetings with EWW 209–210
– considers returning to Catholic church 214–216
– worsening relationship with STW 211–212, 216–220, 242–243
– continuing love for STW 211–213, 218, 233, 243–244, 250
– returns to Catholic church 216–219
– campaigns against nuclear reactor 221–223
– Twenty-Eight Poems published 223
– continuing problems with Joan 226
– second sight / Tarot 235
– Oblate of Order of St Benedict 236, 250
– protest poems 241–243, 255–256
– antiques shop 204–206, 240, 240
– mother dies 238–240
– at Bosanko 250–251
– car crash 252–254
– leaves Catholic church 254–255, 256, 260–261, 265
– increasing ill health 233–235, 244–245, 250
– undergoes surgery and cancer treatments 256–260
– joins Quakers 259–261
– writes last poems 257, 259, 261–264
– prepares for death 262–265
– claims life was happy 283
– imagines afterlife 294
– death 266
– burial in Chaldon 266–267, 267
– bequests 267, 271–272
– posthumous publications 102, 263, 271–273, 275–277, 291
Works:
– ‘Accept the cold content’ 210
– ‘After a conversation about Pasternak’ 242–243
– ‘After a conversation with Sylvia’ 249
– ‘After you had spoken’ 236
– ‘Ah, did you once see Shelley plain
…’ 64
– ‘All Souls’ Night’ 224
– ‘A not-poem about love’ 252
– ‘A solitary thought’ 178
– A Start in Life (Norfolk Story) 164–165, 185
– ‘August 6th’ 166
– ‘Autumn’s the wind’ 140
– ‘Badajoz to Chaldon, August 1936’ 119
– ‘Being Alive’ 167
– ‘Beneath this roof-tree’ 101
– ‘Beyond Thy Dust’ (short story) 207
– ‘Bright bar of sun’ 151
– ‘By Grace of Water’ 126
– ‘“Call up the Devil!” cried Sylvia’ 85
– Country Conditions 120
– ‘Dark Entry’ 139
– ‘Did I feel like a poet long ago?’ 160
– ‘Did Lazarus …’ 175
– ‘Epithalamium for Death’ 243–244
– ‘Every autumn a wind’ 224–225
– ‘For all that takes place’ 209
– For Sylvia: An Honest Account 184–185
– ‘From the far past’ 172
– Further Poems of VA 275
– ‘Heliodora’ 175, 202
– ‘Hope of Poetry’ 242
– ‘If she were to rise …’ 213
– ‘I have tried very hard to write’ 233
– ‘I hear them coming again’ 163
– ‘I lay beside you’ 243
– I’ll Stand by You: The Letters of STW & VA 271
– Invitation to Madrid 123
– ‘I remember the story of a poet’ 248
– ‘I stand committed now’ 221
– ‘It would be foolish –’ 199
– ‘I wait through the year’s long days’ 172
– ‘Journey from Winter’ 167
– Journey from Winter: Selected Poems of VA 102, 263, 276–277, 291
– ‘June 17th 1967 China explodes the H-bomb’ 255
– ‘June 1969’ 261
– Later Poems of VA 272
– Lazarus poems 171–172, 175, 212–213
– ‘Lesbian’ 37
– Letters from England 149
– ‘Limerick Diary’ 33–34
– ‘Living near the Asylum’ 173
– ‘Lord Body’ 167, 171
– ‘Mirror’ 122
– Miscellany for Tamar 27
– ‘My hand and the pen’ 194
– ‘Night Poem II’ 252
– ‘O flame do not die –’ 213
– ‘On a Calendar of Anti-War Poems’ 255
– ‘On not returning to America’ 145
– ‘Out of the cold’ 250
– ‘Overnight’ 101
– ‘Poem for Sylvia’ 190
– ‘Poem in a Bad Year’ 204
– ‘Poem in Middle Age’ 162
– ‘Poem in the Chinese Manner’ 257
– Poems in Pain 261
– Poems of Loss or Darkness 236
– Poems of Release 161
– ‘Postscript to Fable’ 203
– ‘Protective Custody’ 154
– ‘Reading the book about Spain’ 230
– ‘Reflections as I pack’ 260
– ‘Remember how one night’ 167
– ‘Roll back the stone’ 172
– ‘Salthouse, New Year’s Eve’ 193
– ‘See you tomorrow night’ 37
– ‘Sleep’ 275
– ‘Space is invisible waves’ 32, 224
– ‘Summer’ 222–223
– ‘Sunt Lumina’ 263
– ‘Sylvia makes the best cakes’ 101
– ‘Teaching to Shoot’ 157
– ‘The clock plods on’ 88
– ‘The Cottage at Night’ 69–70
– ‘The Crow’ 261–262
– ‘The eyes of body’ 85–86
– ‘The June rain’ 178
– ‘The Lonely Woman’ 65
– The Nature of the Moment 272–273
– ‘The New Spring’ 170
– The Ravens (juvenilia) 39, 45
– ‘There is a silence of the body’ 139
– ‘There is not very much to say’ 186
– ‘This is the coldest winter’ 212
– Twenty-Eight Poems by VA 223, 272, 290
– Uncensored Letters from Barcelona 116
– ‘Undone?’ 236
– ‘Urn Burial’ (short story) 223
– ‘Vietnam (or any of the other wars)’ 255
– War in Progress 147
– ‘Warren, Connecticut, 31.viii.39’ 138
– ‘Weather Forecast’ 187
– ‘What must we do’ 87–88
– ‘When you look at me’ 283
– ‘Whether a dove or a seagull lighted there’ 97
– Whether a Dove or Seagull 97–102, 111, 201, 207, 224, 249, 272, 276, 282
– ‘Whether the lost thing found’ 167–168
– ‘While I slept’ 231
– ‘Winter Illness’ 160
– ‘Yuletide at Home’ 149
Akhmatova, Anna 243
Alassio, Italy 43
Albert Hall, London 110
Aldeburgh, Sufolk 271
Alderney, Channel Islands 246
Alec (Robertson, VA’s cousin) 50
Algeciras, Spain 25
Allingham, William 275
America 97, 113, 127–128, 143, 138, 140, 142, 145, 147, 166, 176, 240, 242
American Hospital, Paris 131
Amnesty International 256
Anarchists 116
Andermatt, Switzerland 59
Anglican (church) 218, 261
Apsley Farm, Sussex 51, 238–239
Aquascutum, London 260
Aquitania (liner) 142
Aragon, Louis 282
Aragon, Spain 118
Arts Council Poetry Library, see National Poetry Library
Ashcroft, Peggy 206
Aspasia (VA’s lover) 59
Atlantic (ocean) 143, 145, 182, 285
‘At Sunset’ (Four Last Songs), Richard Strauss 276
Auden, W H 109, 123
Austin, Baby (car) 214
Authors’ Foundation, The, see Society of Authors
Auxiliary Fire Service 152, 156
B
Bagnold, Enid 206
Barcelona, Spain 115–119, 122, 135, 146–147
Barker, ‘Colonel’ 93
Barnes, Djuna 39
Barney, Natalie 39
Bart’s (St Bartholomew’s) Hospital, London 46
Bayswater, London 19
Beach Cottage (Winterton) 149
Beaton, Cecil 31
Bedford, Sybille 291
Beethoven, Ludwig van 86, 269
Bell, Vanessa 9
Bergeraine, Mlle de 39
Berlin, Irving 25
Bertorelli Restaurant, London 196
Bessie (Robertson, VA’s aunt) 51
Beth Car, Chaldon 10
Bettiscombe Manor, Dorset 206
Betty (VA’s Apsley cousin) 238
Bilbao, Spain 127
Black, Emily (Emmy) 38, 75
Bloomsbury, London 9, 27, 33, 59, 63
Blunden, Edmund 249
Bodleian Library, Oxford 271
Bosanko Cottage, Cornwall 250–251
Boulestin Restaurant, London 34, 60
Braden, Rachel 7–12, 26, 33, 251
Bradstreet, Anne 113, 193
Brennan, George 109
Brewer, Franklin 238
Brief Lives (John Aubrey, play by Patrick Garland) 260
Britain 1, 110, 114, 124, 146, 152, 163, 198, 242, 277
BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) 291
British Library, London 288
British Medical Aid 115
Britten-Pears Foundation, Aldeburgh 271
Brompton Hospital, London 245
Brooks, Romaine 39
54 Brook Street, Mayfair 71, 210
Browne, Felicia 115
Browne, Sir Thomas 223
Browning, Robert 64, 174
Bryher 57
Buckfast Abbey, Devon 236
Buckingham Palace, London 42
Buck, Percy (Teague) 62–63, 79, 83, 87
Burton Bradstock, Dorset 287
Butch (lesbian identity) 56
C
Cain and Abel 43
Caledonia, SS 25
Camberwell, London 24
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) 256, 260
Campbell, Roy & Mary 34
Camus, Albert 135
Canada 251
Candace / Candy (dog) 211, 241
Carcanet Press 277, 291
Carpenter, Edward 39
Carstairs, Joe 57
Casals, Pablo 124
Casey, Mary 272
Catholicism / Catholics 1, 12, 15, 21, 28, 93, 167, 174, 206, 214–218, 224–225, 229–230, 235–238, 240, 246–248, 250, 254–255, 260–261, 270, 290
Catholic Ladies’ Guild 219
Celo, N. Carolina 139–140
Cerbère, France 115
Chaldon, Dorset 7–12, 21, 27–28, 31–32, 53, 57, 60, 63, 65–66, 68–69, 79–80, 82, 85–86, 90, 92, 103–104, 113, 119, 124–126, 128–129, 132, 135, 140, 161, 179–180, 193, 221, 241, 251–252, 266, 275, 287, 294
Chase, Sybil & Rob 246, 265
Chatto & Windus (publishers) 90, 97, 99–100, 272–273
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding (Julia Strachey) 17
Chesil Beach, Dorset 287
China 242, 255
Christianity 261
Church of England 216
Chute, Marchette 191
Chydyok, Dorset 9, 10, 288, 290
Citroën 2CV (car) 10, 286, 290
Civil Defence Office, Dorchester 153, 156
Clare, John 65, 101
Claridge’s Hotel, London 71
Clark, Marianna 290
Clark, Stephen 108, 118, 290
Clark the Chemists, Dorchester 267
Cold Comfort Farm (Stella Gibbons) 11
Colville Terrace, Bayswater 19
Communism / Communists 1, 10, 104–105, 107–111, 114, 130, 135–136, 154, 163, 206, 208, 218, 222, 229–231, 278–279
Communist Party 105, 107–111, 113, 120–121, 126–128, 146, 153, 208
Comrade Ackland & I (Frances Bingham) 291
Consell de Sanitat de Guerra, Spain 116
Conservative Party 24
Conservative Youth League 104
Constantine, David 264
Continent (of Europe) 45
Continental, Hotel (Paris) 46
Copt / Coptic (church) 261
Cornford, Frances 206
Cornum (field), Frome Vauchurch 164, 239
Cornwall, England 200, 205, 250, 255
Coty (scent factory), Paris 38
Country Life 120
Countryman, The 207
Coward, Noël 85
Craig and Bentley 208
Craske, John & Laura / Craskes (paintings) 64–65, 87, 90, 129, 135, 152, 271
Crauford House (boarding school) 49
Critical Essays on Sylvia Townsend Warner (Edwin Mellen Press) 291
Cunard, Nancy 33, 109, 171, 235
Cwmfelinfach (Wales) 110
D
Daily Worker 107, 109, 116, 120
Daloge, Madame 24
Das Kapital (Karl Marx) 104
Devonshire/ Devon 15, 72, 170, 205
Dialectical Materialism (Joseph Stalin, Dialectical & Historical Materialism) 104
Dickens, Charles 247
Diva (magazine) 285
Dominions, The 240
Donne, John 214
Dooley, Kit 148–149
Dorchester 10, 105, 125, 153, 156, 161–162, 166, 176–177, 192, 209, 225, 253–254, 257, 261, 263, 286–288, 292
Dorchester Museum 2, 205, 246, 285, 290
Dorset 10, 107, 125, 153, 156, 161–162, 166, 176–177, 192, 209, 225, 253–254, 257, 261, 263, 286–288, 293
Dorset, Chief Constable of 105, 206
Dorset Constabulary 109
Dorset County Museum, Dorchester, see Dorchester Museum
Dorset Echo 221, 288
Doughty St, London 27
Dove, Shepherd 21, 95
Drove, The, Chaldon 7, 66, 78, 294
Dublin, Ireland 169
Durdle Door, Dorset 235
E
East Anglia, England 208
Eastbourne, Kent 47, 49
East Chaldon, see Chaldon
Edith (maid) 76
Edom, Mr (STW’s fictional character) 205, 274
Edwin Mellen Press 291
Egdon Heath (Hardy’s Wessex) 221
Eiffel Tower Restaurant, Soho 33
Eiloart, Ronald 61, 88
Ellis, Havelock 157, 274
Eltham, see Green Lane
Elwin, Malcolm 249
Empson, William 111, 113, 249, 280
England 108, 140, 165, 174, 193, 251
Ernest (chauffeur) 76
Europe 131, 139, 163
Evelyn, see Holahan, Evelyn
Evershot, Dorset 168, 174
