Blogging Woolf

Today at the New York Public Library’s Berg Collection, I got firsthand help from curator Isaac Gewirtz.

First, he showed me an article he wrote comparing the proof copy of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own to the first published copy. It includes an appendix listing every variant between the recently-acquired proof (long thought to have been lost) and the first published version.

As the article shows, Woolf made significant revisions, many related to her views on war and patriarchy. Dr. Gewirtz’s article was published last year in Woolf Studies Annual Volume 17.

Second, Dr. Gewirtz gave me a printout of a Feb. 4 Guardian article that discusses a newly found letter related to the Dreadnought Hoax in which Woolf and four of her friends impersonated Abbysinian royalty to dupe a British admiral and board a Royal Navy dreadnought ship in 1910.

Written by Horace de Vere Cole, one of the pranksters, the letter is being offered for sale by Rick Gekoski, a London dealer in rare books and manuscripts who is imported from the U.S. The letter is accompanied by an original photograph of the hoaxers.

Third, Dr. Gewirtz told me that the Berg Collection holds one of the few existing photos of the Bloomsbury Group members who participated in the Dreadnought Hoax.

All three pieces of information connect to my research topic, the Bloomsbury pacifists.

Isaac Gewirtz is another reason why I ♥ librarians, including library curators.

Read more about my time at the Berg:

• Day 1 at the Berg: Reunion with the lions
• Day 2 at the Berg: Tips from a librarian