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.
Cornford, Hugh et al. “Frances Cornford 1886-1960”. Selected Poems, edited by Jane Dowson and Jane Dowson, Enitharmon Press, p. xxvii - xxxvii.
xxxv
Friends, Associates
Ling Shuhua
Other authors with connections to Bloomsbury were drawn to Wuhan: W. H. Auden
and Christopher Isherwood
visited the campus on 22 April 1938 during their longer trip on which they wrote about the Sino-Japanese...
Friends, Associates
Jane Ellen Harrison
In Paris Harrison and Mirrlees entertained guests including Virginia
and Leonard Woolf
, with whom they had been friendly for some time, and Jessie Stewart
.
Robinson, Annabel. The Life and Work of Jane Ellen Harrison. Oxford University Press.
9, 296-8
Friends, Associates
Ray Strachey
Virginia Woolf
visited RS
at Mud House (near Fernhurst in Sussex).
Strachey, Barbara. Remarkable Relations: The Story of the Pearsall Smith Women. Universe Books.
photo 225ff
Friends, Associates
Aldous Huxley
This biography's four epigraphs include words from Dennis Gabor
, hoping that AH
will be remembered less for literary achievement than for his heritage to those who really care about the future of the human...
Friends, Associates
Violet Trefusis
VT
had tea in London with Virginia Woolf
(whom she was hoping to persuade to publish her first novel written in English, Tandem). It appeared next year from Heinemann
.
Souhami, Diana. Mrs. Keppel and Her Daughter. Flamingo.
256
Health
Jane Ellen Harrison
JEH
had been diagnosed with leukaemia by the summer of 1927. Mirrlees nursed her through this last illness.
Robinson, Annabel. The Life and Work of Jane Ellen Harrison. Oxford University Press.
303-4
In February 1928 Virginia Woolf
met with Harrison for the last time. She described her in...
Health
Frances Cornford
She claimed that although she felt healthy while pregnant, breast-feeding inclined her towards depression.
Cornford, Hugh et al. “Frances Cornford 1886-1960”. Selected Poems, edited by Jane Dowson and Jane Dowson, Enitharmon Press, p. xxvii - xxxvii.
xxxii
Her children later recalled her as invalidish and suffering from a lack of energy and robustness.
Cornford, Hugh et al. “Frances Cornford 1886-1960”. Selected Poems, edited by Jane Dowson and Jane Dowson, Enitharmon Press, p. xxvii - xxxvii.
xxxii
She required nurses...
Intertextuality and Influence
Willa Cather
In the course of composition WC
sent for a copy of Woolf
's The Voyage Out, which also ends with the protagonist's death.
Cather, Willa. “A Calendar of the Letters of Willa Cather”. The Willa Cather Archive, edited by Andrew Jewell et al.
to Blanche Knopf, [October 1926]
Intertextuality and Influence
Ann Oakley
AO
calls this book a mixture of scientific fastidiousness and poetic licence.
Oakley, Ann. Telling the Truth about Jerusalem. Basil Blackwell.
9
Her introduction, which is sub-titled the Snows of Seinäjoki,
Oakley, Ann. Telling the Truth about Jerusalem. Basil Blackwell.
3
both uses snow as a metaphor (for imaginative beauty, lovingly described...
Intertextuality and Influence
Anne Thackeray Ritchie
Her influence on Virginia Woolf
is incalculable. ATR
was a model from within the Stephen family of an independent and money-earning woman writer. Her prose, in particular the impressionistic imagery and associative diction of her...
Intertextuality and Influence
Rose Macaulay
This novel is both social history and satire, covering territory similar to that of Virginia Woolf
's The Years and May Sinclair
's The Tree of Heaven. Like these, it traces the lives of...
Intertextuality and Influence
U. A. Fanthorpe
With this volume, says UAF
, I entered the different world of S. Martin's, Lancaster, and of France; and I was just beginning to have things to say about the condition of women...
Intertextuality and Influence
Ann Oakley
The book opens with Eleanor on holiday with her husband, David: their first trip alone together after the years of holidaying with their three children, and a cue for mentally probing the past. Eleanor's childhood...