Sylvia Townsend Warner

Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893–1978) was both an author and poet, and a musicologist and composer. Her first novel, Lolly Willowes (1926) established her literary talent.  She was a prolific writer of short stories and contributed more than 150 to The New Yorker over 40 years. Warner was a political activist and a communist, who volunteered for the Red Cross during the Spanish civil war.  A feminist pioneeer, she lived in rural Dorset with her partner, the poet Valentine Ackland. Their long-term relationship and public openness at a time when this was not generally acceptable established her as a trailblazer for lesbian visibility. Warner is now regarded as under-appreciated, although her reputation revived somewhat in the 1970s as a writer of sapphic literature when her work was published by Virago Modern Classics and there has been rather more interest in her work in recent years

This statue was commissioned by the charity Visible Women UK, which campaigns for greater representation of women in public art. The choice of Warner as the subject was decided by public vote. A cat lover, Warner is depicted with one of her feline companions at her feet. This is the first public statue of a non-royal woman in Dorchester.

Location: Outside Gould's department store, South Street, Dorchester, Dorset.