The Corner That Held Them, Sylvia Townsend Warner
The Corner That Held Them, Sylvia Townsend Warner
41 Rating(s)
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The Corner That Held Them

Author: Sylvia Townsend Warner

Narrator: Emma Gregory

Unabridged: 14 hr 37 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/12/2022

Synopsis

A unique novel about life in a fourteenth-century convent by one of England’s most original authorsSylvia Townsend Warner’s The Corner That Held Them is a historical novel like no other, one that immerses the reader in the dailiness of history, rather than history as the given sequence of events that, in time, it comes to seem. Time ebbs and flows and characters come and go in this novel, set in the era of the Black Death, about a Benedictine convent of no great note. The nuns do their chores, seek to maintain and improve the fabric of their house and chapel, and struggle with each other and with themselves. The book that emerges is a picture of a world run by women but also a story—stirring, disturbing, witty, utterly entrancing—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? These are among the deep questions that lie behind this rare triumph of the novelist’s art.

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. She was active in the Communist Party and served in the Red Cross during the Spanish Civil War. Her first novel, Lolly Willowes, appeared in 1926 and was the first ever Book-of-the-Month Club selection. Over the course of her long career, she published six more novels, seven books of poetry, a translation of Proust, fourteen volumes of short stories, and a biography of T. H. White.

About Emma Gregory

Emma Gregory has enjoyed an extensive and varied career. Some of her many radio titles include The Diary Of Samuel Pepys, Don Quixote (with Paul Schofield), The Bell, In the Native State (with Peggy Ashcroft), Dombey and Son, The Quatermass Memoirs (with Andrew Keir), and Great Expectations. She has also recorded Shakespeare on CD for Riverrun Productions and the soundtrack of The Beggars Opera for the Royal Shakespeare Company. She works regularly as a voice-over artist for various companies, including the History and Biography channels.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Katie on February 20, 2016

When I was 19 years old I lived in England for a year, and I was very depressed (not your fault, England). When I was feeling particularly sad or down, I would often go on a long walk/bike ride to Godstow Nunnery along the River Thames. It had been shut down long ago, of course, and it was mostly ju......more

Goodreads review by JimZ on January 16, 2020

I enjoyed this book. The version of the book I got was published by Virago Modern Classics in 2012. The Introduction was by Philip Hensher and it was quite good. This book was also re-issued by the New York Review of Books in September 2019 as part of their classics series. I appreciate the remarkab......more

Goodreads review by None on April 07, 2025

The Benedictine convent of Oby in Warner's historical chronicle feels like stepping into a forgotten world - these women's lives spanning from 1163 to 1382 captured me completely. The book begins unexpectedly: "It was owing to a murder that the convent came to be founded. The guilty man had thought......more

Goodreads review by Ali on February 06, 2012

I bought this book in a charity shop last week. I had heard of this book and on flipping through it I was instantly intrigued by it. I decided to read it straight away while my interest was piqued. ‘The Corner That Held Them’ is an historical novel, set in a Benedictine convent in the 14th century.......more

Goodreads review by Jesse on October 07, 2021

My first read of the 2020 lockdown, & in those early, anxious, insular days I found great solace in this bird's eye view take on the passage of time & the evergreen foibles of humanity (given the context I was so struck with how the Black Plague is accorded a few unnerving paragraphs before history......more

Quotes

“One of the great British novels of the twentieth century: a narrative of extraordinary reach, power, and beauty.” Sarah Waters, New York Times bestselling author

“Warner’s style is delicate and arch…Though she teeters on the edge of satire, she lands instead…on poignancy.” New York Times

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