Blogging Woolf

Wednesday 9 January [1924]

At this very moment, or fifteen minutes ago to be precise, I bought the ten years lease of 52 Tavistock Sqre London W.C. 1—I like writing Tavistock. Subject of course to the lease, & to Providence, & to the unforeseen vagaries on the part of old Mrs Simons, the house is ours: & the basement, & the billard room, with the rock garden on top, & the view of the square in front & the desolated buildings behind, & Southampton Row, & the whole of London – London thou art a jewel of jewels, & jasper of jocunditie – music, talk, friendship, city views, books, publishing, something central & inexplicable, all this is now within my reach. – D2, 282-3

Thanks to Elisa Kay Sparks for finding and posting this quote in the Woolf Group on Facebook today.

Part of the Tavistock Hotel is on the site of Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s property at 52 Tavistock Square, on the south side of the square, three houses from Southampton Row. It was the Bloomsbury house where Woolf lived the longest. It is also where she wrote most of her novels. The Woolfs occupied the top two floors before the property was destroyed during WW II.