Francis Warner (author)

Francis Warner was born in Bishopthorpe, Yorkshire, England,[4] to Reverend Hugh Compton Warner and Nancy Le Plastrier Owen.[5] After serving as vicar of Bishopthorpe from 1932-1938,[6] Rev Warner became vicar of St Martin of Tours in Epsom in 1938,[7] an incumbency he held until his resignation in 1950 to become education secretary of the Church of England Moral Welfare Council.[8] Rev Warner and his family lived in The Old Vicarage, Epsom, throughout World War II,[9] an experience recalled later by Francis in the collection Beauty for Ashes: Selected Prose and Related Documents[10] and the text of David Goode’s Blitz Requiem.[11] The elder Warner, who had become an honorary canon of Guildford Cathedral in 1948, died in London, age 51, after a long illness, on 1 July 1956.[12]

Francis was educated at Christ’s Hospital, London College of Music, and St Catharine's College, Cambridge. Whilst at Cambridge, Warner was C.S. Lewis's last graduate student.[13]

Warner produced several volumes of lyrical poetry early in his career and was honoured for his poetry as the recipient of the Messing Award (now known as the St. Louis Literary Award) in 1972 by the St. Louis University Library Associates. Warner began writing plays in the early 1970s, creating a body of theatrical work that would later be styled as the dramatic play cycle Agora. In addition to the plays in Agora, Warner continued writing poetry, publishing several volumes throughout his later literary years.