The Letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland

In chapter two I discuss some of the ways Warner thought about letters as a means of establishing and maintaining friendships, before beginning an account of the lifelong correspondence between her and Ackland. In 1949 their relationship was challenged by Ackland’s infidelity with Elizabeth Wade White, an American academic. In describing this long-lasting affair I examine how, during times of crisis, both Warner and Ackland used their correspondence to develop an alternative world which existed at a distance from their lived experience; one which allowed them to maintain a fantasy of fidelity within the context of faithlessness.