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 political activities kept AWE
at the centre of London's socially-conscious literary circles. Guests at The Well of Loneliness tea-party included Virginia Woolf
, Rose Macaulay
, Vita Sackville-West
, G. B. Shaw
, and...
politics
Amabel Williams-Ellis
Among those prepared to sign were Virginia
and Leonard Woolf
.
Travel
Amabel Williams-Ellis
From the mid-1920s, AWE
and her family took both short and extended sailing trips to such places as North Wales, Scotland, France, and later, Australia, New Zealand, and the Caribbean...
Literary responses
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The Athenæum carried a signed review for this book by Virginia Woolf
, who went straight to the heart of the matter. It would be easy to make fun of her; equally easy to condescend...
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...
Intertextuality and Influence
Antonia White
Nevertheless, the desire to write persisted. While still unpublished, AW
gave her profession as authoress.
Vaux, Anna. “Biscuits. Oh good!”. London Review of Books, pp. 32-4.
32
Her biographer Jane Dunn
says Virginia Woolf
was the hero-writer of Antonia's youth.
Dunn, Jane. Antonia White: A Life. Jonathan Cape.
70
She later enlisted psychiatrists...
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.
5: 126 and n1
Friends, Associates
Rebecca West
RW
was introduced by Virginia Woolf
to Ethel Smyth
, whom she had ardently looked forward to meeting; West and Smyth discussed Emmeline Pankhurst
, about whom they had both been writing.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
5: 254, 259
Literary responses
Rebecca West
Virginia Woolf
judged it to be in a different and higher league than the novels of Hugh Walpole
, although produced, like ornamental porcelain, according to a convention which was tight and affected and occasionally...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Rebecca West
This collection, which consists of RW
's contributions to the Bookman in the years 1929-1930, includes Feminist Revolt, Old and New, Notes on the Effect of Women Writers on Mr. Max Beerbohm, and...
Intertextuality and Influence
Eudora Welty
Back in Mississippi in the early 1930s EW
chose jobs (editing, reporting) that required her to write. Travelling on behalf of the WPA
, she wrote of its work in her home state for local...
Literary responses
Eudora Welty
Not all responses were favourable. Lionel Trilling
likened Welty to Woolf
, which he did not intend to be complimentary.
American National Biography. http://www.anb.org/articles/home.html.
The aforementioned TLS reviewer, who hailed the humour of the title piece, noted that in...
Textual Features
Eudora Welty
This volume included sixteen reviews. Welty's review of Virginia Woolf
's A Haunted House was one of two that had to be dropped at the last moment for lack of space.
Welty, Eudora. A Writer’s Eye: Collected Book Reviews. Editor McHaney, Pearl Amelia, University Press of Mississippi.
Madame C. de Broutelles
founded the Prix Femina Vie Heureuse, a prestigious French literary prize awarded by a jury of twelve women. A. Mary F. Robinson
(an English writer living in France) was a co-founder.
1907: Edmund Gosse anonymously published Father...
Writing climate item
1907
Edmund Gosse
anonymously published Father and Son, an autobiography of his early years which presents his father, the scientist Philip Gosse
, as an oppressive, small-minded bigot.
Birch, Dinah. “Fond Father”. London Review of Books, pp. 3-5.
3
1 November 1907: The British Museum's reading room reopened...
Building item
1 November 1907
The British Museum
's reading room reopened after being cleaned and redecorated; the dome was embellished with the names of canonical male writers, beginning with Chaucer
and ending with Browning
.
6 May 1910: King Edward VII died, and George V assumed...
National or international item
6 May 1910
King Edward VII
died, and George V
assumed the throne; Virginia Woolf
dated a section of The Years from the old king's death.
6 November 1910: Roger Fry organised the Manet and Post-Impressionists...
After 18 February 1914: Leonard Woolf published his second novel,...
Writing climate item
After 18 February 1914
Leonard Woolf
published his second novel, The Wise Virgins (which he had begun to write on his honeymoon). Quite different in genre from his first, it is a roman à clef reputedly presenting harsh caricatures...
28 April-1 May 1915: At the International Women's Peace Congress...
National or international item
28 April-1 May 1915
At the International Women's Peace Congress in The Hague, thirteen hundred women delegates from twelve countries founded the International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace
; it became the Women's International League for Peace...
From early summer 1915: Garsington Manor, near Oxford, the home of...
Building item
From early summer 1915
Garsington Manor, near Oxford, the home of Lady Ottoline
and Philip Morrell
, became a centre for many pacifists, conscientious objectors, and non-pacifist critics of the war.
1 January 1916: The British edition of Vogue (an American...
Building item
1 January 1916
The British edition of Vogue (an American fashion magazine) began publishing from Condé Nast
in Hanover Square, London.
1917: Scientist and travel-writer Norman Douglas...
Writing climate item
1917
Scientist and travel-writer Norman Douglas
published his most famous book, the novelSouth Wind, whose ironic questioning of conventional morality appealed to a war-weary public, bringing it great success.
11 November 1918: At 11 a.m. (the eleventh hour of the eleventh...
National or international item
11 November 1918
At 11 a.m. (the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month), the Armistice, signed at Compiègne, went into effect, officially ending World War I.
14 May 1920: Time and Tide began publication, offering...
Building item
14 May 1920
Time and Tide began publication, offering a feminist approach to literature, politics, and the arts: Naomi Mitchison
called it the first avowedly feminist literary journal with any class, in some ways ahead of its time.
Mitchison, Naomi. You May Well Ask: A Memoir 1920-1940. Gollancz.
168
1924: Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth...
Woolf, Virginia. “Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street”. The Dial, 1880-1929, Vol.
75
, No. 20-7.
Woolf, Virginia. Night and Day. Duckworth, 1919.
Woolf, Virginia. Night and Day. Hogarth Press, 1977.
Woolf, Virginia, and Margot Asquith. “Obituary: Lady Ottoline Morrell”. Times, p. 16.
Woolf, Virginia. “On Being Ill”. The New Criterion, edited by T. S. Eliot, Vol.
4
, No. 1, pp. 32-45.
Woolf, Virginia. Orlando. Hogarth Press, 1928.
Woolf, Virginia. Orlando. Hogarth Press, 1978.
Woolf, Virginia. “Phyllis and Rosamond”. The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf, edited by Susan Dick, Hogarth Press, 1985, pp. 17-29.
Woolf, Virginia. “Professions for Women”. The Death of the Moth and Other Essays, Hogarth Press, 1981, pp. 149-54.
Woolf, Virginia. “Review of Dora Sigerson Shorter: <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>The Sad Years</span>”;. Times Literary Supplement, No. 867, p. 403.
Woolf, Virginia. “Review of W. D. Howells: <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>The Son of Royal Langbrith</span>”;. The Guardian, 1846-1951.
Woolf, Virginia. Roger Fry. Hogarth Press, 1940.
Woolf, Virginia. “Sara Coleridge”. The Death of the Moth and Other Essays, Penguin Books, 1961, pp. 98-104.
Bell, Quentin, and Virginia Woolf. The Charleston Bulletin Supplements. Editor Olk, Claudia, British Library, 2013.
Woolf, Virginia. The Common Reader. Hogarth Press, 1925.