The Akeing Heart

Letters between Sylvia Townsend Warners, Valentine Ackland and Elizabeth Wade White

The Akeing Heart is the story of the tormented relationships between the British novelist and poet Sylvia Townsend Warner; her life partner Valentine Ackland; the American who invaded their happiness, Elizabeth Wade White; and Elizabeth’s neglected lover Evelyn Holahan. Valentine was the serial seducer, and Elizabeth the demanding lover claiming her sexuality for the first time. Sylvia kept faith in anger and despair, while Evelyn offered Elizabeth realistic fidelity to balance Valentine’s romanticism. This edition of correspondence over twenty years between the four women, assembled by Peter Haring Judd, Elizabeth’s godson, from her personal archives, makes this book one of the finest collections of twentieth-century literary letters about love and its betrayals.