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.
AD
's work weaves together a wide range of cultural and literary references: the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgîtâ, as well as such European authors as E. M. Forster
, T. S. Eliot
, Dickinson
Intertextuality and Influence
Margaret Forster
Insofar as this novel tells the story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
through a previously disregarded witness, it invites comparison with Woolf
's Flush. But for Forster this is a side-issue. More important is endowing...
Health
Jane Ellen Harrison
JEH
had been diagnosed with leukaemia by the summer of 1927. Mirrlees nursed her through this last illness.
Robinson, Annabel. The Life and Work of Jane Ellen Harrison. Oxford University Press.
303-4
In February 1928 Virginia Woolf
met with Harrison for the last time. She described her in...
Health
Frances Cornford
She claimed that although she felt healthy while pregnant, breast-feeding inclined her towards depression.
Cornford, Hugh et al. “Frances Cornford 1886-1960”. Selected Poems, edited by Jane Dowson and Jane Dowson, Enitharmon Press, p. xxvii - xxxvii.
xxxii
Her children later recalled her as invalidish and suffering from a lack of energy and robustness.
Cornford, Hugh et al. “Frances Cornford 1886-1960”. Selected Poems, edited by Jane Dowson and Jane Dowson, Enitharmon Press, p. xxvii - xxxvii.
xxxii
She required nurses...
Friends, Associates
Ling Shuhua
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...
Grant, Joy. Stella Benson: A Biography. Macmillan.
254, 255
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
Dorothy Brett
Brett moved in various distinct social circles. Augustus John
was an admired acquaintance. Virginia Woolf
, a friend, nevertheless commented in 1921 on Brett being one of the entourage of Lady Ottoline Morrell
, and...
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...
Bagnold's biographer Anne Sebba
writes that try as [EB
] might to belong to the artists' milieu, she could not release her other foot from the smart set.
Sebba, Anne. Enid Bagnold: The Authorized Biography. Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
148
Bagnold's friends included socialist...
Friends, Associates
Hope Mirrlees
While living in Paris, Mirrlees and Harrison entertained visitors who included HM
's mother
(widowed in 1924), and Virginia
and Leonard Woolf
.
Robinson, Annabel. The Life and Work of Jane Ellen Harrison. Oxford University Press.
Through her first Bloomsbury connections, LS developed working friendships with Leonard Woolf
and Vita Sackville-West
: Woolf extended his late wife
's encouragement of LS's writing and ultimately published her memoir, Ancient Melodies, with...
Brett, Dorothy. Lawrence and Brett. J. B. Lippincott Company.
39-40
On the whole, however, she did not pursue literary friendships in the USA. She continued her...
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Robins
In 1928 Octavia introduced ER
to her distant relative Virginia Woolf
(whose doctor she later became). Elizabeth and Octavia remained friendly with the Woolfs for years, and were devastated by Virginia's suicide in 1941. On...