The Letters of Virginia Wool: Vol. Five, 1932-1935

The Letters of Virginia Woolf #5

by Virginia Woolf, Nigel Nicolson (Editor)

Letters, English Literature, Literary Studies

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, British Literature

496 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1979

About the author

(Adeline) Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.

During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

Reviews

[jrendocrine at least reading is good · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, I join a probably-larger-than conceivable club of people who have actually read 5 of 6 volumes of Woolf's letters...

With Europe marching into war, and Hitler everywhere, little of this appears in the letters. Is this how life has to be, living on during growing un/imaginable horrors? Virginia and Leonard take a motorcar journey into Germany during this time (!) but feel protected by Mitz the marmoset around Leonard's shoulders. The pain of all of this! Yet it doesn't emerge in the back and forth from London to Rodmell.

There are the interminable letters to Ethyl Smyth, who without seeing her letters to Virginia, seems an intolerable egoist. One gets tired of the friendship. There are few letters to Vanessa, some interesting ones to Vanessa's children - but all in all, Bloomsbury is covered in dust sheets, and quiet - all likely listening to the radio in alarm. Woolf was writing The Years, my least favorite of her books. All a bit dreary, but how can one be brilliant and colorful as Hitler is ascendant?

I will inevitably miss her and want to read the last volume, but it will be awhile.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The volume covering 1932-1935. Several deaths of friends, main correspondents are Vita, Vanessa, and Ethel Smyth, whom Virginia complains about to other people but leads on quite a bit, or so it seems to me. What is remarkable is the number of different archives and private collections these letters are scattered in - editing must have been difficult, and who knows what else might come to light? Any set of letters must be incomplete, of course, and they are also limited by whether or not the friend or family member was around at the time and not in need of long letters (Vanessa, particularly).

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

As usual, these letters were witty, insightful, profound and sometimes heartbreakingly sad (she lost so many people – but she wrote about grief so well). I have to say, though, I usually don’t mind the introductions to these volumes (by Nigel Nicolson), or at least they usually provide context which aids the enjoyment of the letters, but this one was completely absurd. It was shorter than the introductions to vol 3 and 4 but it read like a long-winded and completely unjustified rant about his opinions on Three Guineas and Woolf’s feminism which firstly, just seemed totally out of line, and secondly, were irrelevant considering Three Guineas wasn’t even written during this period! It actually did give me laugh at how ridiculous it was. But I don’t want to leave this review on a man’s stupid introduction so here’s one of my favourite quotes (her letters to Ethel Smyth were my absolute favourites in this volume):

”How can I cure my violent moods? I wish you’d tell me. Oh such despairs, and wooden hearted long droughts when the heart of an oak in which a toad sits imprisoned has more sap and green than my heart: and then d’you know walking last evening, in a rage, through Regents Park alone, I became so flooded with ecstasy: part no doubt caused by the blue and red mounds of flowers burning a wet radiance through the green grey haze: and I assure you I made up pages of stories I shall never write.”

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly enjoyed reading these letters, and would highly recommend the series to any Woolf fan.