Sylvia Townsend Warner, Lolly Willowes
SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER, LOLLY WILLOWES (1926) To celebrate our Book of the Year Award, we asked our followers on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to name the statuette from our official 2016 seal. After sifting through hundreds of entries, a clear victor emerged: “The Lolly!” "The Lolly" is a tribute to Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner, the very first book ever selected by Book of the Month back in 1926. At the time, BOTM judges voted to decide on monthly selections. Warner's book won by a large margin, even though the author was virtually unknown. When told that Lolly Willowes had been selected, Warner said: “Any organization daring enough to pick an unknown author would be a valuable asset to contemporary literature.” bookofthemonth.com
The award of the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize has been made to Miss Radclyffe Hall for her popular novel of Soho, “Adam's Breed,” whose chief character is a waiter. The Femina prize is the only international reciprocal literary prize, and is awarded annually in France and England for the best work of fiction of the year. The final award to the English novel is made by the French Committee, and vice-versa,
and both committees are composed of distinguished writers. The three novels which were selected to go up to the French Committee were “Adam's Breed;” “Lolly Willowes,” Miss Sylvia Townsend Warner’s book which raised so much discussion on witchcraft; and Liam O'Flaherty's “The Informer.”
Westminster Gazette, April 7, 1027
Roused at 8.30 by [feminist author, founder of the Women Writers' Suffrage League and legendary literary salon host] Violet Hunt ringing me up to say that the Tait Black prize had gone to Adam’s Breed. I could not feel as annoyed as I might have done because I was so amused by her officious desire to break the bad news; and yet I believe the woman likes me – I’m sure she thinks she does. Sylvia Townsend Warner, diary, January 7, 1928
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