Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Virginia Woolf
-
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.
For years MS
was ridiculed for her incorrect orthography, but in fact her unorthodox spelling was modern. It was that advocated by the reformers, participants in a movement to reduce the number of unphonetic letters...
Literary responses
Mary Agnes Hamilton
Virginia Woolf
read this novel soon after its publication, with fascinated disapproval. She felt that MAH
had energy and ability, and the wits to construct the method of telling a story, but that she had...
Literary responses
Elinor Mordaunt
This received the accolade of a warm welcome in the Times Literary Supplement from the highly critical young Virginia Woolf
. The novel confirmed her sense that EMtakes a very high place among living...
Literary responses
Dorothy Richardson
Again the Times Literary Supplement reviewer was Woolf
, who made here her remarkable, well-known statement about the uniquely feminine qualities of DR
's writing.
Woolf, Virginia, and Michèle Barrett. Women and Writing. Women’s Press.
191
Literary responses
A. E. Housman
At AEH
's death Virginia Woolf
wrote that although she had personal reservations about his muse—Always too laden with a peculiar scent for my taste. May, death, lads, Shropshire—
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
6: 33
he had...
Literary responses
Ivy Compton-Burnett
During the early part of ICB
's career she was little regarded or understood. Raymond Mortimer
was one of the first to perceive her quality, and she quickly began to attract the attention of younger...
Literary responses
Stella Gibbons
SG
's Cold Comfort Farm won the Prix Femina Vie-Heureuse, worth forty pounds (as Webb
's Precious Bane had done only seven years previously). Gibbons's award was presented in June 1934.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
5: 303-4 and 303n1
Literary responses
Dorothy Wordsworth
Virginia Woolf
published an essay on DW
in 1929 (reprinted in the Common Reader: Second Series, 1932). As early as 1940 (in his edition published the following year) Ernest de Selincourt
wrote, Dorothy Wordsworth...
This novel was not a popular success. Reviews were mostly negative, although there were some flattering comments scattered among the criticism. New Republic termed the book excellent, but the Times Literary Supplement called it disappointing...
Literary responses
Susan Tweedsmuir
ST
later wrote that the book did not sell well, but that I was always proud and pleased to think that Virginia
had liked it.
Tweedsmuir, Susan. A Winter Bouquet. G. Duckworth.
83
Literary responses
Elinor Mordaunt
Johnson
thought these stories less successful that EM
's novels. He may have been influenced by his declared belief that women have seldom excelled in short fiction.
Johnson, R. Brimley. Some Contemporary Novelists (Women). Books for Libraries Press.
57
Woolf
, too, was less warm in...
Literary responses
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The Athenæum carried a signed review for this book by Virginia Woolf
, who went straight to the heart of the matter. It would be easy to make fun of her; equally easy to condescend...
Literary responses
Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence
EPL
's involvement in the militant suffrage movement was necessarily controversial: contemporaries both lauded and reviled her. In her diary Virginia Woolf
described EPL
's style of public speaking in 1918 with some disdain. I...
Literary responses
Joseph Conrad
Initial reviews were unfavourable. Several years after its publication, Virginia Woolf
described the novel as a rare and magnificent wreck.
“Contemporary Authors”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Centre-LRC.