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.
Her motive (when she decided to undertake this work, two years before it was published) was not money but pleasure: writing a novel makes me feel so much more alive—though she felt deterred by...
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Doris Lessing
DL
also wrote such brief works of literary comment as a foreword for The Fox by D. H. Lawrence
, published by Hesperus
in 2002, and an article for the Guardian in June 2003 on...
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Ethel Smyth
ES
broadcast Scrapbook for 1912: Scenes, Melodies and Personalities of 25 Years Ago; Virginia Woolf
listened in and enjoyed the programme.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
6: 113n2
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Dora Carrington
Her penmanship is evocative, and her words are accompanied by striking illustrations: Jane Hill
suggests that in some of her images Carrington anticipates the comic violence of Charlie Chaplin
and Walt Disney
's Mickey Mouse...
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Rose Macaulay
Over the years, RM
published several dozen literary articles in a wide range of magazines, newspapers, and commemorative volumes. She wrote on past and contemporary literary figures, including Leslie Stephen
, Stella Benson
, Rebecca West
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Elizabeth Taylor
ET
published her fourth novel, A Wreath of Roses, with an epigraph from Woolf
's The Waves. It took her fifteen months to write, half as long again as her previous novels.
Leclercq, Florence. Elizabeth Taylor. Twayne.
41n10, 34
Beauman, Nicola. The Other Elizabeth Taylor. Persephone Books.
211
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Flora Macdonald Mayor
FMM
's second major novel, The Rector's Daughter, appeared from the Hogarth Presson a commission basis, with the help of Leonard
and Virginia Woolf
.
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
Woolmer, J. Howard, and Mary E. Gaither. A Checklist of the Hogarth Press, 1917-1946. Woolmer/Brotherson.
25
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Anne Carson
AC
's poetry collection Men in the Off Hours, 2000, variously inhabits the minds (and bodies) of Tolstoy
, Lazarus, Freud
, Catullus
, Sappho
and Emily Dickinson
, not to mention the French...
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Elizabeth Robins
ER
wrote the book in 1933-34, but her brother Raymond
prevented its publication during his lifetime.
Gates, Joanne E. Elizabeth Robins, 1862-1952. University of Alabama Press.
253, 284
John, Angela V. Elizabeth Robins: Staging a Life, 1862-1952. Routledge.
136
Virginia Woolf
had promised to read the manuscript on 4 June 1939.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
6: 334
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Stella Gibbons
SG
's literary criticism for The Lady includes a number of articles on women writers. One piece criticises Rose Macaulay
for her small range and lack of subtlety. Another praises Virginia Woolf
as a giant...
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Jan Morris
JM
edited Travels with Virginia Woolf, much of whose material consists of excerpts from Woolf
's letters and diaries.
In 1934 Vanessa Bell
did the decor for Fête Galante, of which Smyth sent Woolf
the synopsis in autumn 1932, when she was trying to get it performed. She conducted its score at Queen's...
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E. M. Forster
Essays here include Anonymity, Art for Art's Sake, Does Culture Matter?, and What I Believe (expressing Bloomsbury Group ideals), as well as several pieces on World War Two.
Kirkpatrick, Brownlee Jean. A Bibliography of E. M. Forster. Clarendon.