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.
In 1933 Vita Sackville-West
formally introduced CSJ
and Edith Craig
to Virginia Woolf
.Woolf was not as fascinated by St John as she was by Craig and Terry, and saw her as a burden on...
Friends, Associates
Rosamond Lehmann
While younger than the principal figures and sometimes inclined to feel herself marginal, RL
was positioned well within the Bloomsbury group. She was close friends with another younger associate, George Rylands
. During the early...
Friends, Associates
Margaret Haig, Viscountess Rhondda
MHVR
corresponded with Virginia Woolf
about Three Guineas and the idea that the exclusion of women from decision-making positions had been the mainstay of sex-antagonism.
Eoff, Shirley. Viscountess Rhondda: Equalitarian Feminist. Ohio State University Press.
LOM
's friendships were many and strongly felt. Developed mainly through her salons and other creative associations, they swept in Lytton Strachey
, Virginia Woolf
, Roger Fry
, Joseph Conrad
, T. S.
and...
Friends, Associates
Laura Riding
Graves and Riding were touchy as friends, between their sense of literary mission (they saw Graves's biography of T. E. Lawrence
as a somewhat demeaning potboiler, not part of his real work at all) and...
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...
Friends, Associates
Gertrude Bell
Vita Sackville-West
stayed with GB
in Baghdad; during the visit she discussed Bell by letter with her friend Virginia Woolf
.
Howell, Georgina. Daughter of the Desert: the Remarkable Life of Gertrude Bell. Macmillan.
502
Winstone, Harry Victor Frederick. Gertrude Bell. J. Cape.
255
Friends, Associates
Hope Mirrlees
HM
probably joined this social circle through Virginia Woolf
, whom she had met by early 1919, likely through their common acquaintance with Karin Costelloe (later Stephen)
, Mirrlees's friend and Woolf's sister-in-law.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Jones, Emily Beatrix Coursolles
Friends, Associates
Edith Sitwell
ES
had many friendships, and there were few notables in the artistic world whom she did not meet. Her friendships were quite volatile, with frequent quarrels, sometimes caused by the practical jokes and the heightened...
Friends, Associates
Hope Mirrlees
Corresponding with Virginia Woolf
, Eliot described this period as the healthiest life in years.
Gordon, Lyndall. T.S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life. W. W. Norton.
367
During this period he wrote The Dry Salvages and East Coker, two of the poems making up Four...
Friends, Associates
Rebecca West
RW
met Virginia Woolf
at a party given by Dorothy Todd
, former editor of Vogue.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.