Virginia Woolf (Writers and Their Work)

225 Pages·2004·4.26 MB·English

by  Laura Marcus

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WRITERSANDTHEIRWORK
ISOBELARMSTRONG
GeneralEditor
VIRGINIA WOOLF

VIRGINIA WOOLF
Laura Marcus
Second Edition
For Daniel,
youngest of bibliophiles
#Copyright1997and2004byLauraMarcus
Secondedition2004
Firstpublishedin1997byNorthcoteHousePublishersLtd,HorndonHouse,
Horndon,Tavistock,Devon,PL199NQ,UnitedKingdom.
Tel:[phone] Fax:[phone].
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisworkmaybereproducedorstoredinan
informationretrievalsystem(otherthanshortextractsforthepurposesofreview)
withouttheexpresspermissionofthePublishersgiveninwriting.
BritishLibraryCataloguing-in-PublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
ISBN074630966X
TypesetbyPDQTypesetting,Newcastle-under-Lyme
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Biographical Outline vii
Abbreviations x
Note on the Text xii
Prologue 1
1 Women’s Future, Women’s Fiction 7
2 A Shape that Fits 17
3 Women and Writing: A Room of One’s Own 41
4 Writing the City: ‘Street Haunting’ 61
and Mrs Dalloway
5 The Novel as Elegy: Jacob’s Room and 84
To the Lighthouse
6 Writing Lives: Orlando, The Waves and Flush 116
7 Fact and Fiction: The Years and Three Guineas 150
8 Into the Heart of Darkness: Between the Acts 175
Notes 187
Select Bibliography 199
Index 209
v
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to Isobel Armstrong for inviting me to write
aboutVirginiaWoolf:Ihavefounditanenrichingexperience.My
thanks to Jan Montefiore and Alison Mark for their helpful
comments on the manuscript and to William Outhwaite for
advice, support, childcare, and much else. I would also like to
offer (belated) thanks to Hilary Walford for her meticulous copy-
editing of the first edition; to Bryony Randall, for her expert help
in updating the bibliography for the new edition; and to Brian
Hulme, for his patience and encouragement throughout. Finally,
my publishers and I gratefully acknowledge the Trustees of the
Literary Estate of Virginia Woolf and the Hogarth Press, Random
House for permission to quote from the works of Virginia Woolf.
vi
Biographical Outline
1882 Born Adeline Virginia Stephen on 25 January in
London, daughter of Julia Prinsep Stephen and Leslie
Stephen, philosopher and biographer. Younger sisterof
Vanessa (b. 30 May 1879) and Julian Thoby (b. 8
September 1880).
1883 Birth of brother, Adrian Leslie Stephen, 27 October.
1895 Death of Julia Stephen on 5 May. Virginia’s first
breakdown in summer. Lease of Talland House, St Ives,
is sold.
1897 Virginia begins to keep a regular diary. Marriage of
Stella Duckworth, Virginia’s half-sister, to Jack Hills on
10 April. Stella dies of peritonitis on 19 July. Virginia
begins studies of Greek and History at King’s College,
London, in November.
1899 Thoby Stephen, Virginia’s brother, enters Trinity Col-
lege, Cambridge, in October.
1902 VirginiabeginsprivatelessonsinGreekwithJanetCase.
1904 DeathofSirLeslieStephenon22February.Beginningof
Virginia’s second serious breakdown in May. Stephen
children move from 22 Hyde Park Gate to 46 Gordon
Square, Bloomsbury. In October, Virginia goes to stay
with aunt Caroline Emelia Stephen in Cambridge. She
helps F. W. Maitland with his Life of Leslie Stephen.
Virginia returns to London in December. Her first
publication, an unsigned review, is printed in the
Guardian.
1905 ThobyStephenstarts‘Thursday Evenings’at46Gordon
Square: birth of ‘The Bloomsbury Group’.
1906 Virginia, Vanessa, and Violet Dickinson leave London
vii
BIOGRAPHICALOUTLINE
for Greece on 8 September, joining Thoby and Adrian.
ThobydiesoftyphoidfeverinLondonon20November.
Vanessa agrees to marry Clive Bell 22 November.
1907 Vanessa marries Clive Bell 7 February. Virginia and
Adrian move to 29 Fitzroy Square, London in April.
Virginiaworks on her novel (Melymbrosia).
1908 Vanessa gives birth to a son, Julian Heward Bell, 8
February.
1910 In January Virginia begins work for Women’s Suffrage.
Birth of Vanessa’s second son, Claudian [Quentin] Bell,
19 August. FirstPost-Impressionist exhibition, organized
by Roger Fry, shown at Grafton Galleries, London,
November–January 1911.
1911 In November, Virginia moves to 38 Brunswick Square,
Bloomsbury, sharing house with Adrian, Maynard Key-
nes, Duncan Grant, and Leonard Woolf. Virginia also
takes lease of Asham House, Beddingham, Sussex.
1912 Marriage of Virginia and Leonard Woolf in London, 10
August. In second part of year, Virginia ill, depressed,
and suicidal. Second Post-Impressionist exhibition,
October–January 1913.
1915 In January, Virginia starts to keep a diary again and
Virginia and Leonard decide to take Hogarth House,
Richmond and to buy a printing press. Publication of
first novel, The Voyage Out, in March. Virginia suffers
severe breakdown and is ill for much of the year.
1917 In spring the Woolfs buy a printing press. Publication
No.1ofTheHogarthPress–VirginiaWoolf’s‘TheMark
on the Wall’ and Leonard Woolf’s ‘Three Jews’ –
published in July.
1918 Birth of Vanessa’s daughter Angelica on 25 December.
1919 Hogarth Press publishes Virginia’s Kew Gardens in May.
Woolfs buy Monk’s House, Rodmell, Sussex, in July.
Night and Day published by Duckworth in October.
1920 First meeting of the Memoir Club takes place in March.
1921 Publication of Mondayor Tuesday in March.
1922 Jacob’s Room published in October by Hogarth Press.
1923 Death of Katherine Mansfield on 9 January. Leonard
accepts literary editorship of The Nation.
viii
BIOGRAPHICALOUTLINE
1924 Woolfs move from Richmond to 52 Tavistock Square,
Bloomsbury. Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown published in
October.
1925 DeathofJacquesRaveraton7March.TheCommonReader
is published in April. Mrs Dalloway is published in May.
Virginia’s growing friendship with Vita Sackville-West.
1926 Virginia works on To the Lighthouse. Writes the ‘Time
Passes’ section of the novel during the General Strike.
1927 To the Lighthouse published in May. Virginia starts to
write Orlando in October.
1928 VirginiaawardedtheFeminaVieHeureuseprizeforTothe
Lighthouse. Orlando published in October. Woolf gives
CambridgelectureswhichbecomeARoomofOne’sOwn.
The Well of Loneliness case is heard in November.
1929 Publication of A Room of One’s Own in October.
1930 Virginiaworks on The Waves.
1931 Publication of The Waves in October.
1932 Death of Lytton Strachey on January 21. Publication of
The Common Reader: A Second Series in October.
1933 Virginiaworks on The Years. Flush published in October.
1934 VirginiacontinuesworkonTheYears.DeathofRogerFry
on 9 September.
1935 Virginia’s play Freshwater is performed before friends in
London.
1936 Woolf is ill for much of year. Works on The Years.
1937 The Years ispublished inMarch. JulianBelldiesinSpain
on 18 July.
1938 Three Guineas published in June.
1939 WoolfsmovefromTavistockSquareto37Mecklenburgh
Square, but with advance of war are primarily resident
in Sussex.
1940 Publication of Roger Fry: A Biography in July. Mecklen-
burgh Square is bombed and The Hogarth Press is
moved to Letchworth, Hertfordshire.
1941 Virginia finishes Pointz Hall (Between the Acts) in
February. Virginia commits suicide by drowning on 28
March.
ix