The Music at Long Verney: Twenty Stories

By Sylvia Townsend Warner and Michael Steinman

Book Overview

Of the previous century's many great storytellers, Sylvia Townsend Warner was the supreme enchantress. The Music at Long Verney collects twenty of her best short stories, most of them from the great years at The New Yorker. They span a full half-century, from 1929 to 1977, and are crowded with irrepressible, living characters and even more animated objects and incidents. There are stories of romantic love and the mysteries of marriage; of artists who speak the truth even as they distort reality; of gardens and houses and very fine things and of those who fancy themselves their owners. The centerpiece of the collection is a series of five linked stories about an eccentric establishment, the Abbey Antiques Gallery, and its singular proprietor, the urbane Mr. Edom. Some of these stories are hilarious, others hauntingly lyrical, but all are incomparably witty and original-in short, they're vintage Warner. On every page, writes John Updike, there is something to be seen or smelled or felt... Beneath her refined witchery lies a strange freshness one can only call, in praise, primitive.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1582432481
• ISBN13: 9781582432489
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: Catapult
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Thoughtful and enchanting short stories.

These short stories are an excellent description of human emotions. The different points of view of the characters within stories are well presented. The many different characters and locations are beautifully and fully captured. The stories are definitely not all 'upbeat', but they will intrigue you. A good choice when you want to 'get away' for a little while. The book itself is lovely and well made, and the introduction provides information about the author.