The cover of Virginia Woolf’s 1933 novel “Flush: A Biography,” which included original drawings by Vanessa Bell.
For Woolf Salon No. 33: Falling in Love with Flush, the focus will be on Woolf’s 1933 biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s dog Flush.
Though the Woolf Salon Project tends to focus on shorter texts (essays, stories, excerpts), Flush seems fitting for this time of year and is only about 33,000 words long. Even if you can’t finish reading or rereading the novel by Feb. 13, the Salon Conspirators would love to see you on the Zoom call.
Hosts: Salon Conspirators Date: Friday, Feb. 13 Time: 2 p.m. EST (New York), 1 p.m. CST (Chicago), noon MST (Albuquerque), 11 a.m. PST (Los Angeles), 4 p.m. (Rio de Janeiro), 7 p.m. GMT (London), 8 p.m. CET (Paris), 9 p.m. EET (Tallinn), 10 p.m. (Istanbul; Moscow), 4 p.m. JST Sat. 2/14 (Tokyo), 6 a.m. EDT Sat. 2/14 (Sydney) Homework:Flush: A Biography (1933) How to participate: Anyone can join the group. Just contact woolfsalonproject@gmail.com to sign up for the email list and receive the Zoom link.
Background on the Salon
The Salon Conspirators — Ben Hagen, Shilo McGiff, Amy Smith, and Drew Shannon — began the Woolf Salon Project in July 2020 to provide opportunities for conversation and conviviality among Woolf-interested scholars, students, and common readers during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.
The decorated plate in the center of this poster features one of 50 plates in the Famous Women Dinner Service, 1932-1934, painted by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant and now housed at Charleston.
The reception of A Room of One’s Own in Egypt will be the topic for the fourth session of the A Room of One’s Own Around the Globe seminar on Thursday, Feb. 12, at 6 p.m. (CET) on Zoom, in English.
Who:Hala Kamal of the University of Cairo What: Presented in English, this fourth session of the “A Room of One’s Own Around the Globe” seminar will discuss the reception of Woolf’s 1929 polemic in Egypt. When: 6 p.m. CTE, noon. EST. Check your time zone. Where: On Zoom. Cost: Free and open to all. How: Log in at this Zoom link. ID meeting: 94948594890. Password: 244826
The A Room of One’s Own: Echos and circulation research project offers to take up Virginia Woolf’s landmark essay A Room of One’s Own (1929) and explore its full potential. One question it attempts to answer is what echo chambers has A Room of One’s Own opened up nearly a century after its publication?
Led by Valérie Favre (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) and Anne-Laure Rigeade (Université Paris Est Créteil), this project will continue until 2029, the centenary of the publication of A Room of One’s Own, and will include seminars, a conference, and a collective publication.
It was Christmas 1933 and Ottoline Morrell gave Virginia Woolf an embroidered silk shawl as a gift. It still exists today as the only remaining piece of Woolf’s clothing, and the National Trust is soliciting funds to help restore it.
Here is a letter of thanks Woolf wrote to Morrell in 1933:
Dearest Ottoline, You are a wonderful woman—for many reasons; but specially for sending a present—a lovely original wild and yet useful present—which arrived on Christmas day. I love being ‘remembered’ as they say; and I hung it on a chair, when the Keynes’s lunched here, and boasted, how you had given it me. What a snob I am aren’t I! But I cant help it. It was a very nice Christmas, as it happened; I had my shawl, and the turkey was large enough and we had cream, and lots of coloured fruits, and sat and gorged—Maynard Lydia Leonard and I. – Monks House, Rodmell, 31 Dec 1933 Letter from Virginia Woolf to Ottoline Morrell
About the shawl repair
Over the years, the fringed shawl was displayed on the back of a wooden chair in Woolf’s bedroom at Monk’s House. Fragile, faded, stained, and in need of restoration, it was removed in 2023. Last year, the National Trust began raising money to repair it in honor of the centenary of Mrs. Dalloway.
As part of the process, the trust plans to clean the shawl, provide conservation stitching, and add a silk and net lining to add stability. The work is expected to take nearly 400 hours of conservation work at a cost of £26, 000.
About the fundraising
That’s where we come in. Anyone can donate to restore Virginia Woolf’s shawl at this link. I am not certain how long the fundraising will go on, but I know it will be in place until at least the end of February.
The National Trust says it feels “confident that with the addition of a silk lining and carefully considered stitching the planned conservation will strengthen and improve the longevity of the textile, thus slowing its deterioration.”
To be on the safe side, you may also want to send an accompanying email specifying that your donation is for the shawl. The email should be sent to supporter.relations@nationaltrust.org.uk, addressed to Steve Lawrence, Supporter Relations Officer.
At left, draped over a chair, is Woolf’s embroidered shawl, the only remaining piece of her clothing, pictured in her bedroom at Monk’s House in July 2019.
Virginia Woolf’s bedroom at Monk’s House, showing the fireplace with tiles decorated by her sister, Vanessa Bell. Notice the lighthouse motif in the center tiles at the top.
Today is Virginia Woolf’s 144th birthday. I should bake her a cake. But since I live in the United States, it is difficult to feel like celebrating. Not when federal agents — ICE* and Border Control — have once again murdered an innocent American citizen in cold blood. Instead, I must speak out.
The murder victims
On Jan. 7, it was Renee Good, a 37-year-old poet and mother of three who was observing a protest against ICE in Minneapolis, Minnesota. ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot her three times in less than one second, including a fatal shot to her head, as she peacefully sat in her car while accosted by three agents.
Yesterday, Jan., 24, it was Alex Pretti, a 37-year old ICU nurse at the local Veteran’s Hospital, who was filming agents with his phone and trying to help a woman the agents had pushed to the ground for no apparent reason. Federal agents then pushed him to the ground, piled on top of him, and beat him with a pepper spray can. They then shot him dead as he lay there. At least 10 shots were fired within five seconds.
Both victims were white. Both victims were braving the bitter Minnesota cold. Both victims were trying to help their immigrant neighbors who each day are being pulled from their homes, their cars, and their workplaces. They are beaten and sprayed with chemical agents. They are kidnapped and taken to detention centers by masked and unidentified federal agents who delight in terrorizing communities and using their power to cause people pain.
These corrupt leaders refuse to do what Woolf advises in her anti-war polemic Three Guineas (1938): “fix our eyes upon the photograph again: the fact” and they advise us to believe their lies, not our eyes.
The witnesses who believe their eyes, not the lies, are everyday people who turn out on the streets of their neighborhoods to protect their communities. They do their best to protect vulnerable neighbors from lawless federal agents running amok with the full support and encouragement of the federal government — from our felonious president on down.
Eyes open, no one safe
Black people in this country have experienced all of this before. They have lived through slavery, lynching, Jim Crow laws, segregation, the civil rights movement, Rodney King, and more. But those of us who are white are not accustomed to thinking of our government as an entity that will hunt us down and cause us great harm.
That is all changing. Now we know that none of us is safe from the government we fund with our tax dollars, no matter the color of our skin or the country of our birth.
I learned this nearly 56 years ago on May 4, 1970, when four of my fellow students were murdered by the Ohio National Guard during a protest against the Vietnam War and President Nixon’s incursion into Cambodia at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio.
On that day, National Guard troops fired somewhere between 61 and 67 bullets in 13 seconds, killing four and wounding nine. All were innocent, unarmed students. Two were protesting. Two were walking to class. I have not felt safe around uniformed law enforcement or military personnel since.
Woolf and the absence of photos
I have always wondered, as have many others, why Woolf did not include any photos of the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War in Three Guineas, despite referring to “the dead bodies, the ruined houses” numerous times.
I think I may finally understand. I have referred to the murders of two Minnesotans numerous times in this post, but I have included no photos. Somehow, it did not seem right to do so.
Instead, I felt compelled to use my words to speak honestly and bluntly — without any editorial cautions — about the events we are experiencing here and those who are leading them. Our leaders’ orchestration of illegal and despicable acts are calculated to distract us from the administration’s failure to release the Epstein files, while promoting a tyrannical regime that will have complete control over our country and the Western Hemisphere.
We must use all our faculties to resist. For, as Woolf wrote in Three Guineas,
we are not passive spectators doomed to unresisting obedience” . . . for a “common interest unites us; it is one world, one life (168).
Some birthday posts
Though I could not write a celebratory post for today, I am adding a few of those posted online by others.
Today is the last day to post a comment objecting to the planned development of a multi-million dollar flat project that would obstruct the view of the Cornwall coast and Godrevy Lighthouse from Talland House in St. Ives, Cornwall, the setting and inspiration for Virginia Woolf’s 1927 novel To the Lighthouse.
Please add your objection to the more than 100 already posted, as of Tuesday.
You must register for an account on the Cornwall Council website before you can post a comment objecting to the development.
If you live in the UK, registration is not a problem, as you need a UK address to register.
If you don’t live in the UK, don’t let the fact that you must have a UK address stop you. Just use the Talland House address provided by Maggie Humm: Albert Road St Ives TR26 2EH. You can register for an account at this link. When the site asks you to verify your account by either text or email, choose email. They will only verify by text if you have a UK phone number.
I used the Talland House address and had no problem, once I realized that the site’s pages load very slowly. Be prepared for that and be patient.
Once you register and are signed in, you can post your comment objecting to the proposal by searching for PA25/07750.
The value to this view is the history behind it: it’s Virginia Woolf, it’s St Ives, it’s Cornwall, it’s literature; it’s everything to do with that book.
What’s next?
The development proposal will be discussed at a planning meeting at St Ives Town Council tomorrow, Thursday. The local authority is set to deliver a decision by Feb. 6.
Map of the proposed development that would obstruct the view of the coast from Talland House in St. Ives, Cornwall. Talland House is to the left and below the development area, which is outlined in red.
You can see how high this project will be by looking at a screenshot of the planning document that shows the west and east elevations of the proposed development, which is called The Terrace St. Ives.
