This article explores the ways in which Sylvia Townsend Warner ensured that she and Valentine Ackland would be remembered together, specifically focusing on the bequest of poetry books left by Ackland to the Arts Council Library (now the National Poetry Library). It examines the selection of books chosen for the library by Warner, both chronologically as a reflection of different stages of Ackland’s life, and thematically as representing her personal interests and poetic preferences. It concludes by considering some of the books themselves, which contain Ackland’s handwritten notes and draft poems.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited • DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.stw.2020.08