Val Warner, a gifted poet, editor, scholar, translator, teacher and occasional short-story writer who "was largely responsible for the rediscovery of the early-20th-century poet Charlotte Mew, whose collected poetry and prose she edited for Carcanet/Virago in 1981," died October 10, the Guardian reported. She was 74.
Warner's book The Centenary Corbière (1975), with her own translations from French of Tristan Corbière's poems and prose writings, was published to great acclaim "and drew attention to a poet whose reputation had waned somewhat in comparison with that of Jules Laforgue, say, or Charles Baudelaire," the Guardian noted.
Her poetry collection Under the Penthouse was released in 1973, while Before Lunch (1986) and Tooting Idyll (1998) followed "at lengthy intervals, and were well received," the Guardian wrote. Alan Brownjohn, writing in the New Statesman, praised Warner's "sharp, unnervingly observant comments on the contemporary scene [which were] full of wit, alertness and surprise." She was much in demand for poetry readings, and contributed individual poems to a range of periodicals. She was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1998.
During the last years of her life, "Warner became increasingly eccentric and reclusive," the Guardian wrote. She "gave up poetry and devoted herself to writing, simultaneously, 10 or so novels, none of which was ever completed. They went through many draft versions and revisions and generated a vast array of notes, which were printed out and dispersed in piles all over the house. She was utterly indifferent to ordinary home comforts or her own well-being.... [Her death] was a tragic end to a life of high principle, endeavor and achievement."