Was today, June 13, the day that Clarissa Dalloway headed out to buy the flowers herself? Elaine Showalter makes a case for that in The Guardian — and for the idea that Londoners and the rest of us should happily celebrate such a day in honor of Virginia Woolf.
Looking at the 1923 calendar, the critic Harvena Richter noted that 13 June is the most likely date. In his edition of Mrs Dalloway for the Oxford World’s Classics, David Bradshaw, finding a discrepancy in Woolf’s reference to a cricket game on that day, argued that the date of the party is an imaginary rather than a real Wednesday. Academics can argue over this fine point for ever. – Elaine Showalter, “Bring out the cardies and cocktails – it’s time we celebrated Dallowday,” The Guardian, 13 June 2017
Today is Dallowday–the date on which Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway is set. Good to be in London and buying the flowers myself.
— Elaine Showalter (@ecshowalter) June 13, 2017
Many critics call June 13th #DallowayDay. Our celebration of #VirginiaWoolf‘s Mrs Dalloway: https://t.co/jGHlIu1je8 pic.twitter.com/okndfdVm0V
— JSTOR Daily (@JSTOR_Daily) June 13, 2016
#DallowayDay June 13th, 1923 pic.twitter.com/4iONXjUc2e
— Kunstseidene (@Kunstseidene) June 13, 2016
Novelist Rebecca Kanner honors #DallowayDay with a personal take on being a woman author @rebeccakanner @GrubWriters http://t.co/l3s6IX2BWo
— John Weeks (@weeksjf) June 13, 2013
It’s #dallowday! #mrsdallowayday https://t.co/Jwiy41SvTb
— #Readwomen (@Read_Women) June 13, 2017
June 2016: Cecil Woolf at 46 Gordon Square, London, toting a book, not flowers.
Alice Lowe
Catherine
Kaylee Baucom
Paula Maggio
Stefano Rozzoni
seanmcphail
suzannebellamy1
veronikakra
Vara Neverow
William Patrick Wend
Zoe Wolstenholme
[…] years of discussion and advocacy for a day that gives Virginia Woolf’s Clarissa Dalloway equal weight with James […]
[…] we celebrate it June 20 or June 17, may we all think of Clarissa and Virginia in London today, as we arrange some flowers of our own, […]
[…] an alternate date — and justification for it — has been shared as a comment on our original post and via the VWoolf Listserv. It comes from Murray […]
I might as well cite here some of my evidence for the date of June 20, which seems to me pretty clear cut. As I express it in my edition of Mrs. Dalloway, we explicitly learn that the day of he novel is a Wednesday, and that it is 1923; “moreover, Clarissa wonders if the ‘crush’ of traffic is due to Ascot . . . which in 1923 ran from Tuesday, 19 June, to Friday, 22 June . . . . Gold Cup Day, on which the most coveted trophy is contested, falls on the Thursday. The results of cricket matches noted by both Septimus and Peter are those they would have seen in a newspaper for 20 June 1923 . . . .” (I go on to cite the London Times.) See Morris Beja, ed., Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (Shakespeare Head Press Edition of Virginia Woolf). Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1996.
Best,
Murray Beja
Thank you for adding this comment. It is so helpful — and elucidating — to see the evidence for using June 20 as the date on which Clarissa took her famous walk. I will keep them in mind for future posts.