The 85th anniversary issue of Weird Tales features our big list of “The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years.” We’re breaking it down online, too: one honoree per day, in no particular order, for 85 days!

SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER (1893–1978) is one of the most oddly overlooked giants of weird fantasy; her epic literary life stretches from the 1927 novel Mr. Fortune’s Maggot to the 1977 collection Kingdoms of Elfin. Within that half-century came volumes of poetry, a classic Arthurian biography — and yet Warner’s most enduring tale remains her very first novel, 1926’s Lolly Willowes, in which a gentle woman rebels against a life of conformity by turning to witchcraft. Warner was ahead of her time.