“Put away in a tin box for posterity”: Curation, Collaboration, and Reclamation in the Sylvia Townsend Warner Archives

ABSTRACT: This essay profiles the archives of Sylvia Townsend Warner at the Dorset History Centre in Dorchester, England. Though Warner has experienced some scholarly reclamation in the past few decades, feminist literary criticism about her could be revised and expanded through consideration of her archival materials. Warner intended her archives to be a collaborative and symbiotic space for scholars of her literature, and her involvement in the curation process necessitates a close reading of her archives alongside her published works. By questioning the mechanisms by which female authors curate their own archives, this essay interrogates the division between Warner’s public and private lives and provides a glimpse of the items within the collection.