The London Scene: Five Essays

by Virginia Woolf

First posthumous publication of one of these essays. With original introduction by Francine Prose, map endpapers and striking Mary Ashead jacket art, none in the Random House edition and. Out of print.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Classics, 20th Century, London

44 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

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

[t · Rating 5 out of 5]

LONDON! short and sweet and interestingly unaltered. the docks bit was esp interesting (as a dilapidated docking village (?) resident) cool!

[Batgrl (Book Data Kept Elsewhere) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ebook, read via Open Library.

This is a very short (around 44 pgs) book of five essays - there's another version with an additional essay "Portrait of a Londoner," which was only discovered in 2004 at the University of Sussex. This essay can be read online here (Guardian, 10 August 2004). From that Guardian link: "In 1931, Virginia Woolf wrote six essays for Good Housekeeping magazine, which together paint a riveting picture of the capital she loved."

It's especially fascinating to read descriptions of a 1931 London which doesn't necessarily exist anymore - or at least in part. For instance, the London docks have been redeveloped and thanks to the renovation the broken windows that Woolf remarks would stay broken wouldn't be seen on today's Docklands. (Well, hopefully.) (BBC video: Britain from Above: The London Docklands, 5 min, 1930s through present, rebuilding of "wasteland" into offices and flats.)

Did I mention these essays were short? They're very short. I suppose that's not a bad thing, but at the end of each one I really wish Woolf had gone on, described more, and taken us into other streets and famous houses. (Though I do admit I wasn't as interested in the House of Commons.) But since this was for a magazine of the 1930s, so we get brevity. Somehow I'm pretty sure Woolf had much more to say about London.

Contents:
The Docks of London
Oxford Street Tide
Great Men's Houses
Abbeys and Cathedrals
"This is the House of Commons"

Quotes to give you an idea of Woolf's descriptions:

The Docks of London

p 8, ships docked in the Port of London:

"A curious change takes place. They have no longer the proper perspective of sea and sky behind them, and no longer the proper space in which to stretch their limbs. They lie captive, like soaring and winged creatures who have got themselves caught by the leg and lie tethered on dry land."

p 9, describing the view along the river Thames:

"Further down, an inn with swelling bow windows still wears a strange air of dissipation and pleasure making. In the middle years of the nineteenth century it was a favourite resort of pleasure makers, and figured in some of the most famous divorce cases of the time. Now pleasure has gone and labour has come; and it stands derelict like some beauty in her midnight finery looking out over mud flats and candle works, while malodorous mounds of earth, upon which trucks are perpetually tipping fresh heaps, have entirely consumed the fields where, a hundred years ago, lovers wandered and picked violets."

p 11, men unloading the cargo:

"...a very few men in shirt-sleeves, who, working with the utmost organization in the common interest...are yet able to pause in their work and say to the casual visitor, "Would you like to see what sort of thing we sometimes find in sacks of cinnamon? Look at this snake!" "

Oxford Street Tide

p 16:

"Oxford Street, it goes without saying, is not London's most distinguished thoroughfare. Moralists have been known to point the finger of scorn at those who buy there, and they have the support of the dandies. Fashion has secret crannies off Hanover Square, round about Bond Street, to which it withdraws discreetly to perform its more sublime rites. In Oxford Street there are too many bargains, too many sales, too many goods marked down to one and eleven three that only last week cost two and six."

p 19-20:

"The old cottage walls, with their oak beams and their layers of honest brick soundly cemented together still put up a stout resistance to the drills and bores that attempt to introduce the modern blessing of electricity. But any day of the week one may see Oxford Street vanishing at the tap of a workman's pick as he stands perilously balanced on a dusty pinnacle knocking down walls and facades as lightly as if they were made of yellow cardboard and sugar icing.

...The charm of modern London is that it is not built to last; it is built to pass.

...We do not build for our descendants, who may live up in the clouds or down in the earth, but for ourselves and our own needs. We knock down and rebuild as we expect to be knocked down and rebuilt. It is an impulse that makes for creation and fertility. Discovery is stimulated and invention on the alert."

Great Men's Houses
[Only two houses are discussed.]

p 23-4:

"Take the Carlyles, for instance. One hour spent in 5 Cheyne Row will tell us more about them and their lives than we can learn from all the biographies. Go down to the kitchen. ...Every drop [of water] that the Carlyles used - and they were Scots, fanatical in their cleanliness - had to be pumped by hand from a well in the kitchen.

...The high old house without water, without electric light, without gas fires, full of books and coal smoke and four-poster beds and mahogany cupboards, where two of the most nervous and exacting people of their time lived, year in year out, was served by one unfortunate maid.

...The voice of the house - and all houses have voices - is the voice of pumping and scrubbing, of coughing and groaning."

Another Carlyle House link.

The other house mentioned: Keats House, Hampstead, p. 27:

"Its bow windows still look out upon vales and trees and ponds and barking dogs and couples sauntering arm in arm and pausing, here on the hill-top, to look at the distant domes and pinnacles of London, as they sauntered and paused and looked when Keats lived here.

...The rooms are small but shapely; downstairs the long windows are so large that half the wall seems made of light."

Abbeys and Cathedrals
[Only about four are mentioned, and two only in passing: St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, St. Mary-le-Bow, St.Clement Danes.]

p 30:

"It is commonplace, but we cannot help repeating it, that St. Paul's dominates London. It swells like a great grey bubble from a distance; it looms over us, huge and menacing, as we approach. But suddenly St. Paul's vanishes. And behind St. Paul's, beneath St. Paul's, round St. Paul's when we cannot see St. Paul's, how London has shrunk! Once there were colleges and quadrangles and monasteries with fish ponds and cloisters; and sheep grazing on greensward; and inns where great poets stretched their legs and talked at their ease. Now all this space has shrivelled."

Woolf refers to Donne's monument in St. Paul's, p 32:

"Even the contorted and agonized figure of John Donne, wrapped in the marble twists of his grave clothes, looks as if it had left the stonemason's yard but yesterday. Yet it has stood here in its agony for three hundred years and has passed through the flames of the fire of London."

So of course I had to look up some images of the sculpture: The John Donne Monument. (Donne's been a favorite of mine since college.) I've been to Saint Paul's but can't remember seeing this monument - and that's not a surprise since 1) statuary is crammed into every inch of the place (or so it seems) and 2) you can't take photos, and that's usually how I remember most travels.

p 35-6:

"The only peaceful places in the whole city are perhaps those old graveyards which have become gardens and playgrounds. The tombstones no longer serve to mark the graves, but line the walls with their white tablets. Here and there a finely sculptured tomb plays the part of garden ornament.

...Here mothers and nursemaids gossip; children play; and the old beggar, after eating his dinner from a paper bag, scatters crumbs to the sparrows. These garden graveyards are the most peaceful of our London sanctuaries and their dead the quietest."

"This is the House of Commons"

p 38-9:

"Dipping and rising, moving and settling, the Commons remind one of a flock of birds settling on a stretch of ploughed land. They never alight for more than a few minutes; some are always flying off, others are always settling again. And from the flock rises the gabbling, the cawing, the croaking of a flock of birds, disputing merrily and with occasional vivacity over some seed, worm, or buried grain."

Again, not in this copy, but here's the extra essay:
Portrait of a Londoner, (Guardian, 10 August 2004)
The first paragraph:

"Nobody can be said to know London who does not know one true cockney - who cannot turn down a side street, away from the shops and the theatres, and knock at a private door in a street of private houses. Private houses in London are apt to be much of a muchness. The door opens on a dark hall; from the dark hall rises a narrow staircase; off the landing opens a double drawing-room, and in this double drawing-room are two sofas on each side of a blazing fire, six armchairs, and three long windows giving upon the street. What happens in the back half of the drawing-room which looks upon the gardens of other houses is often a matter of considerable conjecture. But it is with the front drawing-room that we are here concerned; for Mrs. Crowe always sat there in an armchair by the fire; it was there that she had her being; it was there that she poured out tea."

[Major Copeland · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s something so indescribably brilliant in the way Virginia Woolf writes and describes London. I loved seeing the city from her point of view and I am amazed by her ability to write in such a fluid way. An amazing find

[Individualfrog · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been trying to get a certain friend of mine to read Virginia Woolf for almost 20 years, and every time she says the same thing: "Oh, I think it must be too terribly sad!" Because she killed herself, and I suspect vaguely because of the air of an oppressed lesbian feminist martyr that the Second Wave understandably imbued her with -- see The Hours, where Nicole Kidman plays her as unrelievedly miserable, dour, severe, nobody anyone would ever want to spend time with -- my friend cannot imagine her writing to be anything but depressing gloom.

But in fact there is no author in the world more life-affirming than Virginia Woolf! Every sentence glows with a delight of living. She writes constantly of buying a cheap pen from a market stall for no reason than because it is a nice green, or dodging a bus while strolling a crowded street -- such passages are at least as characteristic as a visionary reverie, a minute catalogue of emotions changing minute by minute, or a learned allusion to Dr. Johnson.

This book reminds me of one of Molly Young's zines -- easily read in a sitting, effervescent, and unexpectedly 'reported'. If it is, as I say, no surprise to see Virginia delighting in the shops of Oxford Street, admiring, against the frowns of an imagined moralist, the flimsy yet opulent architecture and the pluck of the pickpocket, it is rather surprising to follow her into a dockside warehouse where a stevedore shows her a snake found in a sack of cinnamon, or into the House of Commons to observe the peculiar unspoken code of the politicians there. She could mingle with bohemians and aristocrats with ease, but seedy docks do not seem like her scene, and the work of MPs, male and technocratic and absorbed in questions of power and economics, she generally ignored in contempt. So even this slim volume has shown me a new side of my favorite author of all (and I will have to buy a copy, I got this one out from the library.)

Despite the delight, it is a little hard to read Virginia Woolf on London at this time and circumstance. It is the delight of a bustling, busy, crowded city in which she felt utterly at home. In these COVID times, nothing is bustling or busy or crowded in any delightful way, and besides, Oakland is not a real city in that sense. There are no streets of shops in which one can buy a pen because it is green, or look at sparkling rings in the window. There are no cathedrals or abbeys and even only one rather uninspiring cemetery, with palm trees in it that spoil any sense of death. City Council is now on Zoom and I don't think it much like Parliament in any case. (There are docks, and though they have containers instead of snakes in the cinnamon, I do think it likely Virginia would have enjoyed them too.) And I do not feel at home here -- working with housing activists, the constant refrain is that immigrants from other parts of the country, like me, are not welcome, and anyway I hate the monotonous sun and dryness as much as the sprawl and sameness. If you talk to developers, not only do they say that affordable housing or anything 'socialist' like that is unsustainable, but even retail space is something they cannot break even on and must be eliminated, until the world is nothing but five-over-ones built out of toothpicks and populated exclusively by techbros. Some people put down roots, but my feet get itchy; I have lived here too long, it's time to move.

[André · Rating 5 out of 5]

Citaat : Je hoort het geraas en de resonantie van Londen zelf. Hier zijn we dan eindelijk aanbeland bij die dikke en machtige cirkel van eeuwenoude steen, waar zoveel tromgeroffel heeft geklonken en waar zoveel hoofden zijn afgehakt, de Tower van Londen zelf.
Review : Virginia Woolf behoorde tot de Bloomsbury Groep en richtte samen met haar man Leonard Woolf de uitgeverij Hogarth Press op. In haar literatuurkritiek behandelde Virginia Woolf twee feministische thema's: het opeisen van een evenwaardige plaats voor het vrouwelijk schrijverschap en de deconstructie van genderverschillen. De grootste schrijvers, stelt Woolf, zijn in staat de wereld te beschrijven vanuit zowel het perspectief van de man als van de vrouw. Ze demonstreert die stelling in Orlando: A Biography (1928) waarin het hoofdpersonage zowel man als vrouw is.



Toch gelooft ze in een vrouwelijke schrijfstijl. In Virginia's tijd was de journalistiek als opstapje naar de literatuur voor een vrouw met literaire ambities geen ongewone gang van zaken. Virginia Woolf begon als recensent voor The Guardian. In 1905 publiceerde ze al artikels in The Times Literary Supplement, The National Review en The Academy & Literature. Haar essays waren intellectueel superieur en toonden een grote belezenheid. Hoewel ze geen formeel diploma had was ze degelijk opgeleid. Als tiener oefende ze haar stijl in de huiskrant onder vaders toezicht. Als adolescent leerde ze met haar dagboeken autobiografische teksten schrijven op professioneel niveau.



Ze adoreerde Londen en dat blijkt ook overduidelijk uit het dunne maar zo mooie Secret London. Geheim Londen is een bundel(tje) van zes beschrijvingen over verschillende delen van de stad Londen. Vijf van de zes verhalen (het zesde -De roep van de straat– valt qua datering en thema eigenlijk buiten de opzet van het boek) zijn gepubliceerd in 1931/32 en beschrijven elk een bepaald aspect van Londen, zoals de havens, Oxford street, abdijen en kathedralen, the House of Parliament, en de (voormalige) residenties van belangrijke Engelse schrijvers en politici. Uitgangspunt van deze ‘verhalen’ is altijd een ‘sfeertekening’ van de omgeving in relatie tot de beschreven activiteit of functie van huis, straat of wijk.



In het eerste verhaal –De havens van Londen– wordt een ‘visueel’ verslag gegeven van een rondgang door die havens. Woolf laat die haven tot leven komen in een haast ‘fotografische’ taal. In de andere verhalen uit de bundel wordt op soortgelijke wijze een bepaald deel of aspect van Londen beschreven, elk met zijn eigen sfeer, ook verwijzend naar de grote literatoren die deze stad voorbracht en dia allemaal een deel uitmaken van de literaire stad Londen. The London Scene is de naam van de oorspronkelijke bundeling van de eerste vijf verhalen, maar de titel Geheim Londen past toch beter bij het imago van Virgina Woolf. Prachtig hebbeding verlucht met foto's uit de periode 1931/32!

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful writing :)

“Now pleasure has gone and labour has come; and it stands derelict like some beauty in her midnight finery looking out over mud flats and candle works, while malodorous mounds of earth, upon which trucks are perpetually tipping fresh heaps, have entirely consumed the fields where, a hundred years ago, lovers wandered and picked violets.” (9)

“One leaves the church marveling at the spacious days when unknown citizens could occupy so much room with their bones and confidently request so much attention for their virtues when we—behold how we jostle and skip and circumvent each other in the street, how sharply we cut corners, how nimbly we skip between motor cars.” (31)

[Claudia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mi artículo favorito es el de Oxford Street, sus observaciones sobre lo efímero de sus edificios resulta interesante. En general, todos los artículos tienen un tono intimista al describir y observar un determinado aspecto de Londres.

[Dr G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Satisfactorily written; it would serve as an audio commentary for a television series introducing London. I can almost hear the dulcet BBC tones. Her reflections and her descriptive language are equally unremarkable.

[Maximiliano Rivas · Rating 3 out of 5]

El libro es un viaje por la vida cotidiana de la bulliciosa ciudad de Londres de los años 30’. La autora logra transmitir la vivacidad de los espacios e inserta comentarios interesantes que permiten situar aquellos espacios en el contexto de la época.

[Surfy · Rating 5 out of 5]

No soy muy fanática de las historias cortas y sin embargo, esta me encantó. Es el libro de Virginia Woolf que más me ha gustado, describe Londres tan bonito e incluso tiene por ahí algunas reflexiones sobre la vida, ¡una verdadera joya!

[Angelica · Rating 4 out of 5]

me gustaron cuatro de los seis escritos que presentan en este libro. Creo que el momento que tenga la oportunidad de visitar Londres y volver a leer este libro me conectare más con los relatos.

[Jeana · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Five essays in this small collection, all about London. My favorite was Great Men’s Houses.

[Cassidy B · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️

[Vaishnavi Jayakumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful descriptions about London, she really does give it life. Not a huge fan of her writing but this one was crisp and sweet.

[Claudia Montesinos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una fotografía de Londres a través de los ojos de Virginia. Abuelas que mueven historias, anclas de buques pasajeros, escaparates que son un dínamo de emociones, casas con vida propia, asambleas con particulares licencias y leyes.

Seis ensayos, un rompecabezas que jamás quedará ordenado por mucho que lo contemplemos.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

The start of the first essay, "The Docks of London," made me think a little of Proust: the magic of names, the magic of place names especially. Woolf writes that any ship leaving port "must have heard an irresistible call and come past the North Foreland and the Reculvers, and entered the narrow waters of the Port of London, sailed past the low banks of Gravesend and Northfleet and Tilbury, up Erith Reach and Barking Reach and Gallion's Reach, past the gas works and the sewage works" to the Docks (p 7), and it's like an incantation. Full of great descriptions of London, like this:

As we come closer to the Tower Bridge the authority of the city begins to assert itself. The buildings thicken and heap themselves higher. The sky seems laden with heavier, purpler clouds. Domes swell; church spires, white with age, mingle with the tapering, pencil-shaped chimneys of factories. One hears the roar and the resonance of London itself. (p 10)

[Serena · Rating 4 out of 5]

For travel to the UK

I wish this edition had some explanatory notes, even as simple as the dates these essays were written.

Woolf says, "The charm of modern London is that it is not built to last; it is built to pass. It's glassiness, its transparency, its surging waves of coloured plastergive a different pleasure and achieve a different end from that which was desired and attempted by the old buildets." I wonder what she would say to the huge creatipns of glass and steel lile the
Omdon Eue or the infamous gherkin.
The essays are an eloquent snapshot of London-her descriptions of the Docls are especially vivid. And her essay on the lack of impressiveness upon seeing Parliment reminds anyone the perils of looking behind the curtain of government.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Woolf geeft ons vaak rake observaties over een aardige variëteit aan verschijnselen die zij om zich heen waarneemt. Niet heel bijzonder. Vaak meer sfeer dan verhaal.
It ’s a pleasure to read these articles, in which Woolf gives us her observations, but not quite remarkable. It’s mostly little things which catch her attention. It’s more atmosphere than story. The last remark is not necessarily negative, of course.
The first five stories first appeared in the magazine ‘Good Housekeeping’, 1931-1932. That selection was published by Frank Allman in 1975. This Dutch edition ‘Geheim Londen’ contains a sixth non-fiction story, called ‘Street haunting’, which first appeared in Yale review, 1927. JM

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely descriptions of London in a writing style very much of its era, ie, rather too purple for my taste.

[Hans Grietens · Rating 5 out of 5]

London as only Virginia Woolf can paint. Beautiful and sometimes deeply philosophical essays. To be reread!