The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Volume Two, 1912-1922

The Letters of Virginia Woolf #2

by Virginia Woolf, Nigel Nicolson

Over six hundred letters covering the first decade of the Woolfs' marriage; the publication of The Voyage Out, Night and Day, and Jacob's Room; the founding of Hogarth Press; the years of World War I; Virginia's two periods of insanity and an attempted suicide. Edited by Nigel Nicolson and Joanne Trautmann; Introduction by Nigel Nicolson; Index; photographs.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Womens, Feminism, English Literature, British Literature, Memoir

664 pages, Paperback

First published September 23, 1976

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 4 out of 5]

only for the aficionado.

In these 10 y VW is married to Leonard, the Hogarth Press gets going, they buy and inhabit Monk's House. Mostly same correspondents - most interesting are letters to Vanessa. Comments on James and Proust. Vita enters with the penultimate letter of Vol Two.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable, strangely in some ways more revealing than the diary - certainly throws fresh light on relationships with friends and acquaintances. This volume takes us as far as the publication of "Jacob's room" and being settled at Monk's House. There is almost nothing about the writing of her novels in the letters, apart from one long letter at the end of the volume. She could obviously compartmentalise her activities in her correspondence.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

As usual with the letters of writers, a very interesting, plebian rendering, in words, of the privater personas of a someone we know almost exclusively through words. This edition, to me, had two themes of primary interest: Woolf's as yet unsure measure of her own talent and fame; and Woolf's as yet unsure measure of James Joyce's own talent and fame. The vortices of correspondence about Ulysses are fascinating, as is her narration of meeting and befriending TS Elliot. Her letters confirm my appraisal of her: a brilliant, neurotic, Edwardian writer desperately trying to be a modernist; mostly succeeding in her work, failing hard in her personal life.

[Mcnorton]

The Question of Things Happening (International Psycho-Analytical Library) by Virginia Woolf (1976)

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again, cannot recommend this series of letters highly enough to the fan of Virginia Woolf. These are delightful to read and show Woolf's public persona quite clearly.

[Carlo Mayer]

Da consultazione