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
Antonia White
In Chelsea AW
formed a friendship with the painter Eliot Seabrooke
, a large and centred personality
Dunn, Jane. Antonia White: A Life. Jonathan Cape.
72
who supplied an oasis of sanity in her life and helped her to sort out her opinions...
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
Susan Tweedsmuir
When ST
's parents and Leslie Stephen
tried to nurture a childhood friendship between Susan, Vanessa
(later Bell), and Virginia
(later Woolf), the relationship never took root. As an adult, however (having admired Woolf's 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.
78n44
Friends, Associates
Lady Ottoline Morrell
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...
Fictionalization
Alice Meynell
To many of her contemporaries (especially male contemporaries), AM
symbolised the perfection of Woman and Mother. Many descriptions of her suggest Woolf
's Mrs Ramsay in To the Lighthouse. Coventry Patmore
and Francis Thompson
Fictionalization
Eliza Kirkham Mathews
EKM
's representation by her husband's second wife as a pathetic victim, idealistic but foolish and untalented, paved the way for Virginia Woolf
's portrait. Woolf seized on details given by Anne Mathews: the best...
Fictionalization
Lady Eleanor Butler
Penruddock
's version of their story sets their elopement in the middle of a ball, and gives them two exciting years in London; Colette and de Beauvoir take a triumphalist view of their assumed lesbianism...
Fictionalization
Violet Trefusis
In addition to her role in Challenge, VT
appeared in several creative pieces by others. The most famous example is Virginia Woolf
's Orlando, which reimagines VT
as the seductive Princess Sasha, who...
Fictionalization
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
American poet Emily Dickinson
loved EBB
's poetry. The language of Aurora Leigh crops up throughout her oeuvre, and she recalls the transformative experience, sanctifying the soul, of her early reading in one poem: I...
Family and Intimate relationships
Lady Anne Clifford
LAC
's father, George Clifford, third Earl of Cumberland
, was not only a land-owner but also a merchant-adventurer. From his most successful voyages he returned with cargoes of exotic produce and artefacts (as mentioned...
Family and Intimate relationships
Sarah Trimmer
Their second daughter, Sarah known as Selina
, taught the younger ones and also some neighbour children.
Yarde, Doris M. Sarah Trimmer of Brentford and her Children, with Some of her Early Writings 1780-1786. Hounslow and District History Society.
DC
began a long friendship with Virginia Woolf
when she was summoned to Woolf's country home, Asheham, after breaking into the house with Barbara Hiles
and David Garnett
.
Gerzina, Gretchen. Carrington: A Life of Dora Carrington, 1893-1932. John Murray.