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.
Like Holtby's first novel, South Riding is set in Yorkshire. Some places in the story are identifiable in life, as Kingsport is a version of Hull. The style is realistic, a rejection of...
Literary responses
Winifred Holtby
South Riding was enormously successful. It was chosen by the Book Society
as their Book of the Month for March, and sold 25,000 copies within the first three weeks of its publication. In 1937 it...
Literary responses
Winifred Holtby
Woolf
read the book only very cursorily, because, she said, I didnt [sic] want to be written about (not personally).
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
6: 381
But in pronouncing it readable, though wildly inaccurate
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
6: 43
she was ranking...
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...
Friends, Associates
Violet Hunt
Among those who frequented VH
's house there were some to whom she became especially close. Her long friendship with Henry James
dated back to July 1882. Apart from an estrangement during the scandal over...
Literary responses
Violet Hunt
To varying degrees, critics have valued VH
's recollections of artistic contemporaries more than her style or other aspects of the memoirs. In a brief review in the Nation and Athenæum on 20 March 1926,...
Literary responses
Violet Hunt
VH
's biography was warmly received both formally and informally. H. D.
(Hilda Doolittle
) wrote to Hunt from Switzerland on 30 September 1932, imagining [h]ow happy the book must make you! The style...
Friends, Associates
Aldous Huxley
This biography's four epigraphs include words from Dennis Gabor
, hoping that AH
will be remembered less for literary achievement than for his heritage to those who really care about the future of the human...
Textual Production
Elspeth Huxley
The commission for this book from Chatto
had been spurred by an invitation from Frank Debenham
on behalf of the Colonial Office
for a book of 100,000 words, for which they would offer £400 and...
Woolmer, J. Howard, and Mary E. Gaither. A Checklist of the Hogarth Press, 1917-1946. Woolmer/Brotherson.
71
Residence
Kathleen E. Innes
The Inneses moved to Lewes, Sussex, where George was partner in an engineering business. Here they were not too far from Virginia
and Leonard Woolf
, though there is no evidence that they ever...
Textual Production
Muriel Jaeger
MJ
's first novel, The Man with Six Senses, was published by Leonard
and Virginia Woolf
at the Hogarth Press
. It deals with human evolution towards abilities currently seen as paranormal.
Her published text retains the tone of her speech: it is playful and engaging, and addresses the reader directly in the second person. Jameson takes the reader through a survey of modern fiction via the...