The Corner that Held Them is a historical novel by English writer Sylvia Townsend Warner, first published in 1948 by Chatto & Windus in London, with the American edition being published by Viking Press. It details the lives of the residents of Oby, a fictional medieval convent in the fenlands of Eastern England. The novel begins at Oby's establishment in 1163 and ends in 1382, encompassing multiple episodic stories surrounding the various residents of the convent. Although there is no conventional overarching plot, a running theme of the novel is the role of the Church in the economic oppression of the common people; Warner described it as a novel written "on the purest Marxist principles."[1]
Warner typed 58 pages for an unfinished sequel that was spread between four gatherings. The novel was reviewed favourably, both in its original publication and on later reprintings, with many critics noting its unromanticized depiction of the medieval era.
- ^ Townsend Warner, Sylvia (2000). The Corner That Held Them. Great Britain: Virago. pp. Introduction. ISBN 978-1-84408-804-1.