Handheld Biographies Series

“This long-hidden treasure-trove of letters, with its many wonderful new photographs and illustrations, is a revelation.” – Claire Harman, author of Sylvia Townsend Warner: A Biography The Akeing Heart is the long-lost story of the deep and passionate relationships between Sylvia Townsend Warner, Valentine Ackland and Elizabeth Wade White. Their intellectual and emotional integrity that endured over twenty years of heartache is revealed here in the rich correspondence preserved by Elizabeth from their relationship, and reconstructed by her godson, Peter Haring Judd. Valentine was the serial seducer, Elizabeth the passionate lover newly aware of her sexuality, while Sylvia kept faith in anger and despair. Elizabeth's long-term partner Evelyn Holahan emerges from the background to their story, as Sylvia's friend, and as a firm dash of realism to Valentine's romanticism. The correspondence over twenty years between the four women in this agonized relationship—in letters, poems, telegrams, keepsakes, and notes—makes this book one of the finest collections of twentieth-century literary letters about love and its betrayals. This edition of The Akeing Heart brings this supplement to Sylvia and Valentine's story to a wider readership.

At last, a biography of Valentine Ackland. Frances Bingham has written the definitive biography of this remarkable cross-dressing woman, poet and activist, recovering an important part of British lesbian history and creating a testament to queerness and gender identity in Valentine’s transgressive life.  Mrs. Turpin was Valentine Ackland, on the run from her recent disastrous marriage. She was soon to meet the love of her life, Sylvia Townsend Warner, already a celebrity for her dashing debut novel Lolly Willowes. They would live in Dorset together in a passionate relationship until Valentine’s death in 1969. Valentine was a dedicated poet, deeply involved with Communism during the 1930s, and an environmentalist and peace campaigner. Recently released MI5 files show that she was blacklisted for confidential work during World War II, and remained under long-term surveillance.  Despite her commitment to Sylvia, Valentine had many affairs with women who fell for her androgynous beauty and her masterful conduct of an amour. She also struggled with alcoholism, but the relationship with Sylvia survived all challenges. "Bingham prompts the reader to keep turning the pages of this well-researched, idiosyncratic, and fascinating biography." – New York Journal of Books "The cross-dressing Communist lesbian, her closet gay husband … and a love story like no other." – The Daily Mail 

T H White, author of The Sword in The Stone, The Once and Future King, The Book of Merlyn, The Goshawk, and many other works of English literature, died at sea from a heart attack in 1964, aged 58. The eminent novelist and critic Sylvia Townsend Warner was asked to wrote his biography, the only study of his life, now republished for a new generation. The biography was published in 1967 and was Warner’s greatest critical success since her first novel, Lolly Willowes, in 1926. It reveals White’s passionate life, his determination to learn, his lifelong worship of hawks and dogs, his self-exile to Ireland during the Second World War, the creation of The Sword in the Stone, the first in the tetralogy The Once and Future King, and the unexpected wealth and fame that came with the Disney cartoon. Warner treats White’s repressed homosexuality and his sexual predilections with humane understanding in this wise portrait of a tormented literary giant, written by a novelist and a poet.

Vita Sackville-West was infatuated with her. Virginia Woolf hated her. Sir John Reith resented her but couldn’t do without her skills: she transformed the BBC into a broadcaster for the people. Lady Astor was her close friend, making a way for her into the heart of Britain’s political, cultural and intellectual aristocracy. Hilda Matheson was one of the most important women behind the scenes in Britain’s public life between the wars and an influential networker between feminist, media and political powers. She packed more into her short life than most people would even think possible. Every challenge was accepted, and she lived her life to the full. Hilda worked for MI6 in the First World War, then became Lady Astor’s political secretary, the first woman MP to take her seat in the House of Commons. Poached by Sir John Reith, Hilda moved to the BBC to become the first Talks Director for the fledgling BBC, but Reith turned against her liberalising energies, and Hilda resigned rather than compromise her principles. Selected to lead a monumental survey of African economics and natural resources Hilda laid the groundwork for the move away from British colonialism. At the beginning of the Second World War she was put in charge of a new propaganda unit to tell Britain’s story to its allies and enemies alike through recordings, images and books. Having suffered all her life from Graves’ disease, which afflicted her with the phenomenal energy levels she needed to tackle the huge tasks in her career, Hilda died during a routine operation in 1940, aged 52. The life of Hilda Matheson is told by her first biographer Michael Carney and by BBC producer Kate Murphy. This passionate, loving woman has finally been the given the memorial her energies and achievements deserve. Her letters to Vita Sackville-West and the Astor papers form the heart of her story, revealing her candid and devoted nature.

Blue Remembered Hills is Rosemary Sutcliff’s memoir of her childhood, youth and her first love affairs. It’s a classic of perfect writing about her close and not always easy relationship with her bipolar mother, life in the naval dockyards where her father was based, and the beloved family dogs, interspersed with her stoic endurance of physical and emotional pain. Sutcliff writes with joy about her fleeting childhood friendships in a lonely life as an only child. Her lyrical descriptions of the beauty around their remote house in Devon distract the reader from realising the excruciating clinical treatment Sutcliff underwent for years to repair the damage caused by Still’s Disease on her joints. She describes how her isolation and her awareness of being physically different informed some of her best-loved novels, as did her early love affairs.