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Archive for July, 2018

Anne Olivier Bell, art scholar, Bloomsbury matriarch, widow of Virginia Woolf’s nephew Quentin, and editor of her diaries, died yesterday at the age of 102.

Bell also helped Quentin pen his 1972 biography of his aunt and the two were instrumental in saving Charleston Farmhouse, preserving it for future generations of Bloomsbury scholars and fans.

In addition, she was known for playing an instrumental role in saving European art from the Nazis during World  II, serving in the Monuments Men effort.

As a result of her marriage to Quentin, Olivier moved into the heartland of the Bloomsbury milieu and, having inherited its values, became one of the most vigorous (and vigilant) guardians and promoters of the Bloomsbury revival. – “Anne Olivier Bell obituary,” The Guardian, July 19, 2018.

Read The Guardian obituary.

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The results are in. The winning quote in the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain’s query posted on its Facebook page is:

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” – A Room of One’s Own

You can read all four of the quotes short-listed for the competition, which was held in celebration of #DallowayDay. The VWSGB says it will hold a similar vote to celebrate #DallowayDay next year.

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Woolf sightings are frequent, both online and in person, testifying to the fact that Virginia Woolf has long been an icon.

Here’s one put together by Lois Gilmore, professor of language and literature at Bucks County Community College in Newton, Pa.

She set up the display of Woolf items in the campus library in conjunction with an honors composition class focused on Woolf that she is teaching this fall.

It includes books by and about Woolf, a doll, note cards, jewelry, the T-shirt from the 2009 Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Woolf and the City, and the program from the 28th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Woolf, Europe and Peace.

Fittingly enough, Lois included Virginia Woolf Icon (1999) by Brenda R. Silver among the books she selected.

Do you have a Woolf sighting or display to share? If so, please add a link in the comments section below.

The Virginia Woolf display at the Bucks County Community College library.

A Virginia Woolf-shaped note card, along with the famous Woolf in Raybans T-shirt, are included in the display.

A copy of Kew Gardens with cover design by Vanessa Bell, along with a quote from A Room of One’s Own and a necklace featuring a Bell portrait of Woolf knitting are part of the display.

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As we reported earlier, the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain is asking Woolf readers to vote for their favorite quote via their Facebook page.

Here’s the VWSGB’s Facebook query:

Thanks to all those who emailed or Facebooked their favourite Virginia Woolf quotations. We received a great variety, but have shortlisted the following five. Just vote for your favourite using the number next to it. If you voted earlier, you can choose the same one or another, and you can make your message public or reply privately. But please vote! #vwquotevote

1) Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. (Mrs Dalloway)

2) In the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June.
(Mrs Dalloway)

3) Why, if one wants to compare life to anything, one must liken it to being blown through the Tube at fifty miles an hour – landing at the other end without a single hairpin in one’s hair! Shot out at the feet of God entirely naked! Tumbling head over heels in the asphodel meadows like brown paper parcels pitched down a shoot in the post office! With one’s hair flying back like the tail of a race-horse. Yes, that seems to express the rapidity of life, the perpetual waste and repair; all so casual, all so haphazard …
(‘The Mark on the Wall’)

4) Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind. (A Room of One’s Own)

5) Nothing is simply one thing. (To the Lighthouse)

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Virginia Woolf scholar Maggie Humm brought Woolf into the mix at the June 21 celebration of #WoolwichWomenRise!

Humm carried a placard paying homage to Kathleen Rance, Mayoress of Woolwich in 1937 ‘who would not as much as darn a sock to help a war,’ according to Woolf in Three Guineas (1938). It was the first time Woolf has been paraded through Woolwich as part of the Greenwich Festival’ Rise.

Maggie Humm (right) carrying a placard honoring Rance. It includes Woolf’s quote on the rear. With her is the current Mayor of Greenwich, which now incorporates Woolwich, holding a placard to the first woman Mayor of Woolwich (1930-1931).

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