{{Short description|British poet (1946–2020)}} {{Infobox writer | name = Valerie Margaret Warner | birth_date = {{Birth date|1946|1|15}} | death_date = {{Death date and age|2020|10|10|1946|January|15}} | occupation = {{Cslist|Poet|editor|translator}} | birth_place = Harrow, London, England | death_place = Hackney, London, England | alma_mater = Somerville College, Oxford | awards = }} '''Val Warner''' was a poet, editor and translator who was best known for helping to increase the salience of poet Charlotte Mew's work.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |last=Craig |first=Patricia |date=2020-11-02 |title=Val Warner obituary |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/02/val-warner-obituary |access-date=2023-09-11 |issn=0261-3077}}</ref>
Warner was the only child of two schoolteachers and grew up in Harrow, London. She went on to study modern history at Somerville College, Oxford.<ref name=":0" />
She initially found work as a school librarian and freelance copy-editor<ref name=":0" /> before holding the posts of Creative Writing Fellow at Swansea University and Writer-in-Residence at the University of Dundee.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=PN Review Print and Online Poetry Magazine - Val Warner: A Reminiscence - Patricia Craig - PN Review 259 |url=https://www.pnreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/scribe?item_id=10985 |access-date=2023-09-11 |website=www.pnreview.co.uk}}</ref>
As well as publishing her own poetry collections, Warner also published a translation of ''The Centenary Corbière'' by Tristan Corbière in 1975<ref name=":1" /> and an edition of Charlotte Mew's collected poems and prose in 1981. Along with other scholarly work in the 1980s, this collection helped in renewing wider interest in Mew's work.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Parker |first=Sarah |date=2023-01-02 |title=This Rare Spirit: A Life of Charlotte Mew: by Julia Copus, London: Faber & Faber, 2021. 464pp., £25, ISBN 9780571313532 |journal=Women's Writing |language=en |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=78–80 |doi=10.1080/09699082.2021.1985236 |issn=0969-9082|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Merrin |first=Jeredith |date=1997 |title=The Ballad of Charlotte Mew |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/438989 |journal=Modern Philology |volume=95 |issue=2 |pages=200–217 |doi=10.1086/392474 |jstor=438989 |issn=0026-8232|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
Warner became increasingly reclusive in the last years of her life.<ref name=":0" /> She sold a house in Harrow that she had inherited from her parents and then subsequently moved to a late-Victorian terraced house in Hackney where she continued to live for the rest of her life.<ref name=":2" /> The house lacked running water, heating and cooking facilities. She survived on a diet of raw onions, soya mince and chickpeas.<ref name=":1" />
Her body was discovered after a forced entry into her house by police on 10 October 2020,<ref name=":1" /> due to a concerned friend contacting them about a lack of a communication with her.<ref name=":0" /> She had died alone and no ascertainable cause of death was reported by the coroner after an autopsy was conducted in November 2020.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" />
== Awards and recognition == Warner received the Eric Gregory Award in 1975<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-05-08 |title=Eric Gregory Awards - The Society of Authors |url=https://www2.societyofauthors.org/prizes/the-soa-awards/eric-gregory-awards/ |access-date=2023-09-11 |language=en-GB |archive-date=2024-04-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240414170507/https://www2.societyofauthors.org/prizes/the-soa-awards/eric-gregory-awards/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1998.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Val Warner |url=https://rsliterature.org/fellows/val-warner/ |access-date=2023-09-11 |website=Royal Society of Literature |date=September 2023 |language=en-GB}}</ref>
== Bibliography ==
* {{Cite book |last=Warner |first=Val |title=These Yellow Photos |publisher=Carcanet Press |year=1971 |isbn=9780902145269}} * {{Cite book |last=Warner |first=Val |title=Under The Penthouse |publisher=Carcanet Press |year=1973 |isbn=9780902145870}} * {{Cite book |last=Mew |first=Charlotte |title=Charlotte Mew: Collected Poems and Prose |publisher=Virago Press |year=1982 |isbn=9780860682233 |editor-last=Warner |editor-first=Val}} * {{Cite book |last=Warner |first=Val |title=Before Lunch |publisher=Carcanet Press |year=1986 |isbn=9780856356292}} * {{Cite book |last=Warner |first=Val |title=Tooting Idyll |publisher=Carcanet Press |year=1998 |isbn=9781857543339}} * {{Cite book |last=Mew |first=Charlotte |title=Collected Poems and Selected Prose of Charlotte Mew |publisher=Routledge |year=2003 |isbn=9780415967570 |editor-last=Warner |editor-first=Val}} * {{Cite book |last1=Corbiere |first1=Tristan |title=The Centenary Corbière |last2=Warner |first2=Val |publisher=Carcanet Press |year=2006 |isbn=9781857547115}}
== References == {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Warner, Val}} Category:Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford Category:20th-century English poets Category:1946 births Category:2020 deaths Category:Writers from the London Borough of Harrow Category:20th-century English women poets