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.
This highly unusual novel takes the form of a disconnected journal by a publisher's secretary named Pompey, an alienated but irrepressible member of the disregarded female work-force, who is clearly an alter-ego for SS
...
Literary responses
Stevie Smith
Novel on Yellow Paper was an immediate critical success. Appreciation expressed in reviews by Naomi Mitchison
and Rosamond Lehmann
laid the foundations for SS
's friendships with these and other writers.
Spalding, Frances. Stevie Smith: A Critical Biography. Faber and Faber.
125
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
Chapters in this novel are headed with terms from mystical Judaic or Kabbalistic worship. The dustjacket of the first London edition bore in gold letters the words Fame! I'm gonna live forever! (from Alan Parker
Literary responses
Ethel Smyth
Woolf
reported that she liked it very much: Now and again it wobbled but righted itself.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
6: 81
Literary responses
Ethel Smyth
Reviewing it in the New Statesman, Woolf
wrote: Can be strident, she is never sentimental.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
4: 137n1
Literary responses
Ethel Smyth
Woolf
liked Beecham and Pharoah less that Smyth's other books, and suspected this was because of the caution that was necessary in writing of people still alive. She declined to give an opinion on Maurice...
Family and Intimate relationships
Ethel Smyth
ES
met Virginia Woolf
; their friendship continued until Woolf's death in 1941.
Collis, Louise. Impetuous Heart: The Story of Ethel Smyth. William Kimber.
175
Dedications
Ethel Smyth
ES
continued her autobiography in As Time Went On; she dedicated it to Virginia Woolf
, who helped her choose its title.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
ES
broadcast Scrapbook for 1912: Scenes, Melodies and Personalities of 25 Years Ago; Virginia Woolf
listened in and enjoyed the programme.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
6: 113n2
Cultural formation
Ethel Smyth
In addition to her relationship with Henry Brewster
, ES
's life was punctuated by a series of intense emotional attachments to women. In a letter to Brewster, she wondered why it is so much...
Textual Production
Ethel Smyth
In 1934 Vanessa Bell
did the decor for Fête Galante, of which Smyth sent Woolf
the synopsis in autumn 1932, when she was trying to get it performed. She conducted its score at Queen's...
Literary responses
Ethel Smyth
Virginia Woolf
wrote of Impressions that Remained that Smyth's method appeared to consist of extreme courage and extreme candour.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
4: 137n1
She later called the book a masterpiece, and teased Smyth about corrupting youth because...
Literary responses
Ethel Smyth
Woolf
responded to this book with the comment that her own chief glory was that I, Virginia, kept Ethel at it.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
6: 376
Friends, Associates
Edith Somerville
Somerville and Smyth
became close friends, and visited and travelled together, though biographer Maurice Collis
thinks that Smyth
expected a sexual relationship where Somerville did not.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber.
In her later years ES
set out to extend her reading. She tried Woolf
's A Room of One's Own (at the behest of Ethel Smyth
) and admired it. But she could not like...