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.
Pernel Strachey
was then Principal of Newnham. EJ
, as secretary of the college literary society, was privileged to invite Edith Sitwell
to address the society, and to meet and entertain the great poet.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. The View from Downshire Hill. Michael Johnson.
21
Friends, Associates
Violet Trefusis
VT
had tea in London with Virginia Woolf
(whom she was hoping to persuade to publish her first novel written in English, Tandem). It appeared next year from Heinemann
.
Souhami, Diana. Mrs. Keppel and Her Daughter. Flamingo.
256
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Bowen
EB
loved Oxford (where she and her husband spent ten years) and became a social success there. She met and became friends with John
and Susan Buchan
, and it was through them that she...
Friends, Associates
Ling Shuhua
Other authors with connections to Bloomsbury were drawn to Wuhan: W. H. Auden
and Christopher Isherwood
visited the campus on 22 April 1938 during their longer trip on which they wrote about the Sino-Japanese...
Friends, Associates
Rebecca West
RW
was introduced by Virginia Woolf
to Ethel Smyth
, whom she had ardently looked forward to meeting; West and Smyth discussed Emmeline Pankhurst
, about whom they had both been writing.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
5: 254, 259
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.
Like her exchanges with Vanessa Bell
, LS's letters to and from Woolf
included reflections about their personal lives and their larger literary and political worlds. She sought Woolf's guidance: Will you allow me to...
Friends, Associates
Ray Strachey
After her return from Bryn Mawr in 1909, Ray Costelloe (later RS
) stayed with her friend Ellie Rendel
(whose mother was an elder sister of Lytton Strachey
) at the Stracheys' home in Hampstead...
Friends, Associates
Violet Trefusis
VT
was gathering material for her upcoming roman à clef, Broderie Anglaise, about herself, Vita Sackville-West
, and Woolf
(with whom Vita had been intimately involved for several years). Woolf wrote about the meeting...
Friends, Associates
Antonia White
In Chelsea AW
formed a friendship with the painter Eliot Seabrooke
, a large and centred personality
Dunn, Jane. Antonia White: A Life. Jonathan Cape.
72
who supplied an oasis of sanity in her life and helped her to sort out her opinions...
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...