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, 1981, 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, 2005.
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, 1986–1994, 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, 1975–1980, 6 vols.
4: 231
Well-known black and white photograph of Virginia Stephen (later Virginia Woolf), 1902. She is seen in profile, with her hair loosely caught back in a bun
Photograph of Virginia Woolf with hand on face wearing a fur stole. This is a picture from one of Virginia Woolf's own photo albums at Monk's House which were acquired at an auction at Sotheby's in 1982 (cf. Maggie Humm, Snapshots of Bloomsbury: The Private Lives of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, p. 187), gifted in 1983 by Frederick R. Koch to the Harvard Theater Collection, Houghton Libray, Harvard University, and afterwards scanned and uploaded by the library.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Leisure and Society Lady Cynthia Asquith
From the 1920s onwards, while keeping up her work for Barrie and gradually becoming a writer herself, LCA remained a society woman much of whose time was occupied with hairdressing, shopping for clothes, social appointments...
Leisure and Society Rupert Brooke
He belonged to the group dubbed by Virginia Woolf the neo-pagans, who believed in the outdoor life, vegetarianism, and nude bathing.
Leisure and Society Dorothy Bussy
The Pontigny conferences were founded by Paul Desjardins in 1910 and were designed to facilitate discussion and exchange among invited international scholars, writers, and artists. Pontigny was closed in 1940 but later revived at Cerisy-la-Salle...
Leisure and Society Christopher St John
The Annual Ellen Terry Memorial Performance was held at the Barn Theatre , Smallhythe: the three women commemorated were Ellen Terry , Edith Craig , and Virginia Woolf .
Cockin, Katharine. Edith Craig (1869-1947): Dramatic Lives. Cassell, 1998.
176
Literary responses Rosamond Lehmann
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 Alice Meynell
Virginia Woolf was angered by AM 's opinion that Jane Austen was a frump (and was even angrier that Meynell advised reading Sterne 's Tristram Shandy in an expurgated edition).
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press, 1975–1980, 6 vols.
2: 503
Literary responses Marie de Sévigné
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 Romer Wilson
RW 's novels, tackling the complex philosophical and social issues that faced people in European countries in the years after the Great War, have been largely, if not entirely, forgotten. Her death at thirty-nine years...
Literary responses Elizabeth Taylor
At Mrs. Lippincote's set the tone for reception of ET by attracting very mixed reviews. She treasured praise from L. P. Hartley , Richard Church (who was reminded of Woolf 's Mrs Dalloway), and...
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 Vita Sackville-West
There was a widespread feeling that VSW had been too circumspect and scholarly. Virginia Woolf told Vita that she found the book solid, strong, satisfactory
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press, 1975–1980, 6 vols.
6: 49
, but wished she had allowed herself a...
Literary responses Beatrice Webb
Woolf , reading an early draft, called it a diary and said it would be a great pity to cut any of it. I was extremely interested and amused throughout, and this is a good...
Literary responses Ethel Smyth
Reviewing it in the New Statesman, Woolf wrote: Can be strident, she is never sentimental.
qtd. in
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press, 1975–1980, 6 vols.
4: 137n1
Literary responses Dorothy Richardson
Virginia Woolf reviewed The Tunnel for the Times Literary Supplement on 13 February 1919. She set out to make it clear to potential readers that here was a challenge: DR , she said, allowed no...
Literary responses Beatrice Harraden
The young Virginia Stephen (who as a daughter of the editor of the equally colossal Dictionary of National Biography, must have felt a particular interest in this book), reviewed it for the Times Literary...

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