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.
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...
Literary responses
Ray Strachey
Virginia Woolf
, clearly delighted at her introduction to Willard, praised the book in her Times Literary Supplement review for its directness and candour and complete lack of padding, as well as the vividness with...
Family and Intimate relationships
Julia Strachey
JS
married sculptor Stephen Tomlin
at St Pancras Church
in London. Virginia Woolf
and other Bloomsbury friends were among the guests.
Strachey, Julia, and Frances Partridge. Julia: A Portrait of Julia Strachey. Little, Brown.
108
Textual Production
Julia Strachey
JS
' first novel, Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, was published by Virginia
and Leonard Woolf
's Hogarth Press
.
Cheerful Weather was the title of a waltz current in the year of publication.
Woolmer, J. Howard, and Mary E. Gaither. A Checklist of the Hogarth Press, 1917-1946. Woolmer/Brotherson.
109
Author summary
Julia Strachey
JS
published two novels and several pieces of short fiction during her lifetime, in the mid twentieth century. Frances Partridge
writes in her introduction to JS
's memoir that when she died, after a long...
Strachey, Julia, and Frances Partridge. Julia: A Portrait of Julia Strachey. Little, Brown.
105
Frances Partridge
writes that JS
was generally judged by them to be a lively and...
Textual Production
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
Family and Intimate relationships
Elizabeth Taylor
The couple had two children: a son, Renny, born in June 1937, and a daughter, Joanna, born on 1 February 1941, after a labour during which ET
was mostly alone while her husband was out...
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Taylor
As a child Betty Coles (later ET
) wrote plays (with very short scenes each demanding a new and elaborate setting) and stories. She said she always wanted to be a novelist.
Leclercq, Florence. Elizabeth Taylor. Twayne.
2
At twelve...
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...
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Taylor
It is set in a small English seaside town, Newby, after the second world war (presumably an imaginary place, though with overtones of Scarborough) since none of the three available north-of-England Newbys is on...
Beauman, Nicola. The Other Elizabeth Taylor. Persephone Books.
214-15
ET
herself felt that it expanded her range, but that the result was not successful: that she had produced a cold...
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Taylor
In the title story an invitation is issued by a couple living comfortable lives in the country to two under-privileged city six-year-olds to come and spend a day with them. The husband (originator of this...
Reception
Elizabeth Taylor
Although she received some glowing reviews throughout her career from some of the most distinguished of her novelistic peers, ET
has also been damned with faint praise. She has been called both the modern man's...