SOURCE: "Sylvia Townsend Warner: 1893-1978: A Celebration," edited by Claire Harman, in PN Review, Vol. 8, No. 3, 1981, pp. 35-7.

In the following interview, which was conducted in 1975, Warner discusses her writing career and political views.

[Sylvia Townsend Warner]: When did I begin to write? I was led away by paper. I'm always led away by blank paper. We had a great many photographs in our work, black and white photographs of manuscripts, and there were always some throw-aways. And the white was the most beautiful smooth white photographic paper and nobody wanted it, and I wanted it, and having collected it by degrees I thought, ''I must do something about all this handsome paper—I think I'll write a poem.' So I started writing poems on this handsome paper.

My first book was The Espalier, and that came out in, I think, 1925. After Chatto and Windus had seen...