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, 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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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, 1967.
57
Woolf
, too, was less warm in...
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
D. H. Lawrence
Early critics, including the novelist Ivy Low
, pointed out the book's resonances with Freudian psychoanalysis, although Lawrence insisted that he did not intentionally use Freud
.
“Contemporary Authors”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Centre-LRC.
In Notes on D.H. Lawrence (1931), Virginia Woolf
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...
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...
Literary responses
Rosamond Lehmann
Some commentators, including Vera Brittain
, felt this essay too clearly reflected the influence of Virginia Woolf
.
Hastings, Selina. Rosamond Lehmann. Chatto and Windus, 2002.
133
Critic Ruth Siegel
commends it as displaying the assertiveness characteristic of Lehmann's expository prose, which could...
Literary responses
Eudora Welty
Not all responses were favourable. Lionel Trilling
likened Welty to Woolf
, which he did not intend to be complimentary.
American National Biography. http://www.anb.org/articles/home.html.
The aforementioned TLS reviewer, who hailed the humour of the title piece, noted that in...
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...