Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Virginia Woolf
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Standard Name: Woolf, Virginia
Birth Name: Adeline Virginia Stephen
Nickname: Ginia
Married Name: Adeline Virginia Woolf
Thousands of readers over three or four generations have known that Virginia Woolf was—by a beadle—denied access to the library of a great university. They may have known, too, that she was a leading intellect of the twentieth century. If they are feminist readers they will know that she thought . . . back through her mothers and also sideways through her sisters and that she contributed more than any other in the twentieth century to the recovery of women's writing.
Marcus, Jane. “Introduction”. New Feminist Essays on Virginia Woolf, edited by Jane Marcus, Macmillan, p. i - xx.
xiv
Educated in her father's library and in a far more than usually demanding school of life, she radically altered the course not only of the English tradition but also of the several traditions of literature in English.
Froula, Christine. Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Avant-Garde. Columbia University Press.
2
She wrote prodigiously—nine published novels, as well as stories, essays (including two crucial books on feminism, its relation to education and to war), diaries, letters, biographies (both serious and burlesque), and criticism. As a literary journalist in a wide range of forums, she addressed the major social issues of her time in more than a million words.
Woolf, Virginia. “Introduction; Editorial Note”. The Essays of Virginia Woolf, edited by Andrew McNeillie, Hogarth Press, pp. vols. 1 - 4: various pages.
ix
She left a richly documented life in words, inventing a modern fiction, theorising modernity, writing the woman into the picture. She built this outstandingly influential work, which has had its impact on both writing and life, on her personal experience, and her fictions emerge to a striking degree from her life, her gender, and her moment in history. In a sketch of her career written to Ethel Smyth
she said that a short story called An Unwritten Novelwas the great discovery . . . . That—again in one second—showed me how I could embody all my deposit of experience in a shape that fitted it.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
RP
takes the journey as the most central of all poetic images. The first part of her book is a guide to reading poetry, divided under headings of which many include the words journey,...
Intertextuality and Influence
Antonia White
Nevertheless, the desire to write persisted. While still unpublished, AW
gave her profession as authoress.
Vaux, Anna. “Biscuits. Oh good!”. London Review of Books, pp. 32-4.
32
Her biographer Jane Dunn
says Virginia Woolf
was the hero-writer of Antonia's youth.
Dunn, Jane. Antonia White: A Life. Jonathan Cape.
70
She later enlisted psychiatrists...
Health
Frances Cornford
She claimed that although she felt healthy while pregnant, breast-feeding inclined her towards depression.
Cornford, Hugh et al. “Frances Cornford 1886-1960”. Selected Poems, edited by Jane Dowson and Jane Dowson, Enitharmon Press, p. xxvii - xxxvii.
xxxii
Her children later recalled her as invalidish and suffering from a lack of energy and robustness.
Cornford, Hugh et al. “Frances Cornford 1886-1960”. Selected Poems, edited by Jane Dowson and Jane Dowson, Enitharmon Press, p. xxvii - xxxvii.
xxxii
She required nurses...
Health
Jane Ellen Harrison
JEH
had been diagnosed with leukaemia by the summer of 1927. Mirrlees nursed her through this last illness.
Robinson, Annabel. The Life and Work of Jane Ellen Harrison. Oxford University Press.
303-4
In February 1928 Virginia Woolf
met with Harrison for the last time. She described her in...
Ling Shuhua
began corresponding with Virginia Woolf
, inspired by her reading of A Room of One's Own and her intimate relationship with Woolf's late nephew Julian Bell
during his time in China.
Laurence, Patricia Ondek. Lily Briscoe’s Chinese Eyes: Bloomsbury, Modernism, and China. University of South Carolina Press.
Wellesley, Dorothy. Far Have I Travelled. James Barrie.
133
In the years after the war she formed her important...
Friends, Associates
Berta Ruck
In Virginia Woolf
's novel Jacob's Room, 1922, a tombstone is inscribed with the name Bertha Ruck. Ruck writes that it is inscribed to The Memory of Berta Ruck.
Ruck, Berta. A Story-Teller Tells the Truth. Hutchinson.
259
Under the heading...
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Jenkins
Having met Edith Sitwell
when she was an undergraduate (an acquaintance which she later kept up) EJ
was asked by Pernel Strachey
when she left Newnham whether she would like an invitation to Leonard
and...
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Bowen
Frequent guests at Bowen's Court (where, says Victoria Glendinning, they ate and drank royally)
Glendinning, Victoria. Elizabeth Bowen. Alfred A. Knopf.
Her friends were soon augmented by contacts from the world of work, like F. W. Hirst
and Josef Redlich
. Barbara
and Laurence Hammond
(a married pair of social commentators whose work was collaborative in...