Book description
John Barnard, leading merchant at a Norfolk port, is a pillar of
nineteenth-century rectitude. Though stern and aloof with his indolent,
tippling wife and watchful children, he is undermined by helpless love
for his pretty, cold-hearted daughter Mary. THE FLINT ANCHOR subverts
the rules of the historical novel and shows how family history is made -
which stories can be trusted, whose voices hold influence and whose are
forgotten. Wit, charm and intelligence illuminate several decades of
family life and the events of small town society in this tragi-comedy of
manners, the last of the author's seven novels. Born in Harrow
(1893-1978), Sylvia Townsend Warner published seven novels, four volumes
of poetry, a volume of essays and eight volumes of short stories. She
lived most of her adult life with her close companion Valentine Ackland
in Dorset and Norfolk.
