The Element of Lavishness: Letters of William Maxwell and Sylvia Townsend Warner, 1938-1978 [Hardcover]

Sylvia Townsend Warner (Author), Michael Steinman (Author), William Maxwell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 26, 2000

An instant classic in the literature of friendship: the witty, affectionate 40-year correspondence between a great story-writer and her New Yorker editor. For forty years, until her death in 1978, Sylvia Townsend Warner (poet, novelist, and short-story writer) and her New Yorker editor William Maxwell (himself a fiction writer of great distinction) exchanged more than 1,300 letters. Their formal relationship quickly grew into a real, unshakable love, and their letters back and forth became the most significant and longest-lasting correspondence of their lives. As Maxwell told the editor of these letters, "Sylvia needed to write for an audience, a specific person, in order to bring out her pleasure in enchanting," and Maxwell was that person, both as editor and as correspondent. Warner brought out the best in Maxwell too. "I suspect that of all the writers I edited, I was most influenced by Sylvia...I think that what you are infinitely charmed by you can't help unconsciously imitating. " In these letters they wrote about everything that amused, moved, and perplexed them-the physical world, personal relationships, the New York City blackout, the Cuban missile crisis, their ceaseless reading, the coming of old age. Gratitude and love are on every page. Not to mention pleasure and delight.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1936, the English writer Sylvia Townsend Warner published her first story in the New Yorker; shortly thereafter she was contacted by mail by a new entry-level editor named William Maxwell. Over the next 40 years, Warner published 153 stories in the magazine, and Maxwell became one of the best-known fiction arbiters of his time. They came to be close friends and correspondents, their exchange (totaling 1,300 letters) depending only partially on New Yorker business. The two carried on an almost impossibly civilized conversation: Warner, learned and eccentric, peppered her letters with obscure literary references and enclosed the odd gift (one year she sent Maxwell a spoon). Maxwell displayed an editor's refinement and a touching solicitude toward his British friend. Though at times they foundered in a sea of mutual admiration, the correspondents were at their best when exchanging literary opinions, details of their respective family lives or simply two ordinary people's distracted awareness of global events. The letters were often not dated, and putting them in sequence must have been a Herculean task for editor Steinman (who also edited Maxwell's correspondence with Frank O'Connor); in any case, the edition is not without flaws. Unable to print the entire correspondence because of its sheer volume, Steinman included some complete letters and excerpts of others, without noting his omissions or explaining his choices; there is no framing material other than a brief introduction, and scarcely any notes contextualizing the letters. Yet despite these editorial oversights, readers who admire Warner and Maxwell for their own beautifully expressed selves will find much to enjoy in this tribute to the leisurely intimacies of a bygone era.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

It has been said that everything written is either poetry or prose. The 40 years of letters between Warner and Maxwell suggest that in the care of experts the written word could simultaneously be both. WarnerDpoet, novelist, and short story writerDfirst came to Maxwell's attention when he read her narrative poem "Opus 7." It was laterDas a copywriter, and before his reign as the renowned editor of The New Yorker (the magazine published 153 of Warner's short stories)Dthat they began their remarkable correspondence. Although both were involved in other relationships (Maxwell married in 1945, and Warner had a 40-year lesbian relationship with poet Valentine Ackland), it is clear that they shared a platonic love. The letters are never mere reports but are passionate, lively, provocative, fun, and serious, too. The subject matter is wide-ranging: money, health, food, rejections, books and book reviews, cats and dogs, children, and, of course, writing. Regardless of age or gender, readers will love the Warner-Maxwell letters; expect the best of goosebumps. In this admirable collection, editor Steinman (English, Nassau Community Coll.) includes entire letters as well as excerpts from more than 500 letters. Recommended for all libraries.DRobert L. Kelly, Fort Wayne Community Schs., IN
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 340 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint Press; 1st edition (December 26, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582431183
• ISBN-13: 978-1582431185
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #727,063 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Letters that show delight in language and friendship, January 16, 2003

By 

Stephanie Patterson (Lindenwold, NJ, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Element of Lavishness: Letters of William Maxwell and Sylvia Townsend Warner, 1938-1978 (Hardcover)

Sylvia Townsend Warner counted herself very lucky to have William Maxwell as her New Yorker editor and readers of this volume of their correspondence would agree Warner wrote 153 stories between 1936 and 1977 and found a devoted and discering fan in Maxwell. Many of the letters deal with both Warner's and Maxwell's writing. On occasion Maxwell has to gracefully reject one of Warner's stories (usually with the reassurance that the story is wonderful "but not for The New Yorker"). But what the reader comes to appreciate are the writers' accounts of momentous occasions and everyday life. Maxwell gives us wonderful accounts of an Adlai Stevenson rally and the Vietnam Moratorium. His account of the NYC blackout (in a letter dated November 17, 1965)is one of the best things I've ever read and worth the price of the book. It's such a seamless piece of writing, with each detail depending on what came before, that to quote bits of it would be to trivialize it.
Maxwell, who lived with his wife and two daughters in NYC, is also good with domestic detail and affecting and funny observations. He relates a conversation in which his small daughter laments that he is bald."'Would you trade me in for a daddy with more hair?'" 'Yes," she says, teaching me a lesson."
And on his resuming piano lessons in middle age: ". . .And Mozart is sustaining though I cannot do it. I would rather not be able to do Mozart than any composer I can think of."
Townsend who lived in England with her companion, Valentine Ackland offers a number of home remedies for illness, my favorite being champagne for any ailment above the waist, brandy for anything below. And she writes with droll humor of her life in an English village: "Poor Niou (a Siamese cat) has just had her first affair of the heart, and of course it was a tragedy. As a rule he flies from strange men, cursing under his breath, and keeping very low to the ground. Yesterday an electrician came; a grave mackintoshed man, but to Niou all that was romantic and lovely. He gazed at him, he rubbed against him, he lay in an ecstasy on the tool-bag. The electrician felt much the same, and gave him little washers to play with. He said he would come again today to to finish off properly. Niou understands everything awaited him in dreamy transports and practising his best and most amorous squint. The electrician came, Niou was waiting him on the windowsill. A paroxysm of stage-fright came over him, and he rushed into the garden and disappeared.
He'll get over it in time; but just now he's terribly downcast."
The volume is filled with fine writing and the reader wants very much to know these two people personally.