It is with great sadness that I share news of the passing of Cecil Woolf, the oldest living relative of Virginia and Leonard Woolf, who died Monday, June 10, 2019, in London at the age of 92 after suffering a stroke. He was also a dear personal friend and a much-loved member of the Woolf community, revered by scholars and common readers alike.
Cecil Woolf stops at 46 Gordon Square, London, while giving Blogging Woolf a tour of Bloomsbury in 2016.
A mentor and friend
A speaker at Woolf conferences and the founder and publisher of Cecil Woolf Publishers, a small London publishing house in the tradition of the Woolfs’ Hogarth Press, Cecil was also a tremendous mentor and friend to the many Woolf scholars, both new and old, that he met at Woolf-related events.
Wherever he went, whether an Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf, an event sponsored by the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain, or a simple visit to a London bookshop, he impressed those he met with his unassuming charm, astute intelligence, and subtle wit.
I was lucky enough to meet Cecil at my first Woolf conference, the 17th, held at Miami University of Ohio in Oxford. I had just completed my Master’s degree at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, for which I had written my thesis on Woolf and war.
Drew Shannon, organizer of this year’s 29th Woolf conference, which ended Sunday at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, and Kristin Czarnecki, current president of the International Virginia Woolf Society, realized I was a newcomer and graciously took me under their wing. In the process, they pointed out Cecil Woolf. I was awed, excited, and determined to meet him.
The next day, I wasted no time introducing myself to this famous but amazingly approachable gem of a man. We hit it off immediately and a 12-year friendship began, during which Cecil published five monographs I wrote for his Bloomsbury Heritage Series. Throughout those years, we corresponded by Royal Mail and email, with Cecil offering gentle encouragement, helpful advice, recommended reading, and moral support. Later, I learned that all his authors received the same considerate care. I was not surprised.
Paula Maggio of Blogging Woolf and Cecil Woolf at his London home in June 2018.
A street-haunter and host
Ever the gracious host for newcomers to his city of London, Cecil gave me a personal tour of Bloomsbury after the 2016 Woolf conference. We spent seven hours exploring Bloomsbury together, with one stop for lunch and another for tea. Throughout our six-mile walk on that fine June day, the conversation with this witty, insightful, and well-read man never flagged.
Knowing I was alone in London, he and his wife Jean Moorcroft Wilson also hosted me for dinner at their London townhouse during that trip, a meal we ate on the table where Virginia and Leonard worked at the original Hogarth Press. I was thrilled.
My little “mascot” Virginia on the Hogarth Press table at the home of Cecil Woolf and Jean Moorcroft Wilson.
I was so thrilled by the experience that I left behind my small Virginia Woolf doll — which Cecil always called my “mascot” — after setting her up for a photo shoot on the Hogarth Press table. Upon arriving at my hotel without her, I emailed Cecil about my forgetfulness. He graciously delivered my little Virginia the next day, adding a bit of whimsey. He delivered her in a box wrapped in white paper and marked with the address of my hotel. Included was a clever card that read, “Dear Paula, I’ve come home! Love, Virginia XX”
Cecil and Jean regularly invited Woolf scholars and common readers into their home, where the wine was plentiful, the food expertly prepared, the company delightful, and the ambiance distinctly Bloomsbury.
After the 2017 event, they held a post-conference party, where art by Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell surrounded guests. And after the 2018 conference in Canterbury, the couple hosted a dinner for a small group of Woolf conference attendees still in London.
A speaker and presence
Cecil Woolf with his 2017 monograph, The Other Boy at the Hogarth Press.
At conferences, Cecil displayed and sold his volumes in the Bloomsbury Heritage Series and was often a featured speaker at those events. The reminiscences about his famous aunt and uncle and the time he spent with them are treasured by conference-goers.
Cecil later documented his stories in The Other Boy at the Hogarth Press: Virginia and Leonard Woolf as I Remember Them, the monograph he published in 2017 as part of his Bloomsbury Heritage Series. I will always treasure the copy he signed for me.
Two years ago, at the 27th conference at the University of Reading in Reading, England, Cecil was also called upon to speak and perform a ceremonial cake cutting at the 100th anniversary of the Hogarth Press.
Cecil was often invited to assist at ceremonies honoring his Uncle Leonard. In 2014, he planted a Gingko biloba tree in Tavistock Square garden to commemorate the centennial of the arrival of Leonard in Colombo, Ceylon. Also that year, Cecil spoke at the unveiling of a Blue Plaque commemorating his uncle’s 1912 marriage proposal to Virginia at Frome Station.
Cecil Woolf cuts the cake designed by Cressida Bell for the 100th birthday party of the Hogarth Press in June 2017 at the University of Reading in Reading, England.
He sometimes attracted media attention. At the Woolf conference in New York City in 2009, he was interviewed by The Rumpus, sharing stories of Virginia and Leonard, as well as his own history in publishing.
An advocate and legacy
It is fortuitous that at this year’s Woolf conference, with its theme of social justice, an entire panel was devoted to Cecil’s publishing work on the topic of war and peace. Held on June 8, it featured papers by me and four other Woolf scholars.
The panel title was “The Woolfs, Bloomsbury, and Social Justice: Cecil Woolf Monographs Past and Present” and it included the following:
- Chair: Karen Levenback (Franciscan Monastery). Introduction to Cecil Woolf Publishers
- Lois Gilmore (Bucks County Community College), “A Legacy of Social Justice in Times of War and Peace.”
- Paula Maggio (Blogging Woolf, Independent Scholar), “Cecil Woolf Publishers: Using the Power of the Press to Advocate for Peace.”
- Todd Avery (University of Massachusetts, Lowell), “Just Lives of the Obscure: Cecil Woolf, Biography, and Social Justice.”
- Vara Neverow (Southern Connecticut State University) Respondent
After our panel ended, we made a commitment to publish our papers in a suitable medium. We agreed that such work should be made available to current and future scholars who want to explore, recognize, and document the legacy of Cecil Woolf and Cecil Woolf Publishers regarding topics of Woolf, war, peace, Bloomsbury, and more.
Condolences and comments
Cecil was loved and revered by countless friends and scholars around the world, including those who study John Cowper Powys, another of Cecil’s areas of speaking and publishing expertise.
Those who would like to send a message of condolence to the family may direct it to Jean Moorcroft Wilson at 1 Mornington Place, London NW1 7RP, England.
Meanwhile, I invite you to share your recollections and tributes to Cecil in the comment box located under the heading “Leave a reply” at the very bottom of this post.
Jean Moorcroft Wilson and Cecil Woolf with their display of Bloomsbury Heritage monographs at the 26th Woolf conference at Leeds Trinity University in Leeds, England, in 2016.
Emma Woolf with her father Cecil Woolf at his London home in June 2017.
Cecil Woolf, Jean Moorcroft Wilson, and Vara Neverow at the 25th Conference at Bloomsburg University in Bloomsburg, Pa., in June 2015. 
Paula Maggio of Blogging Woolf takes a break with Cecil Woolf in the Tavistock Square garden after the 26th Woolf Conference in June 2016.
Patrizia Muscogiuri and Cecil Woolf chat at the 20th Woolf Conference at Georgetown College in Georgetown, Ky., in 2010.
Some of the monographs in the Bloomsbury Heritage Series.
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[…] is the daughter of the late publisher Cecil Woolf, Leonard Woolf’s nephew, and the noted biographer of World War I poets Jean Moorcroft […]
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I’m so very sad to hear this news of Cecil. I can only echo the sentiments of so many others in sending my condolences to Jean, Emma and the family. Working with Cecil over many years on the letters of John Cowper Powys and on the Powys Heritage series of booklets was a pleasure and privilege, and my own (too infrequent) visits to Mornington Crescent always a delight. Cecil will remain an abiding presence in the lives of all who were touched by his humour, his encouragement and his generosity.
What a literary loss! I was never privileged to meet him, but he seems to have been a sweetheart. Condolences to you and the Woolf community.
I have very fond memories of meeting Cecil and Jean at their home behind Mornington Crescent in 1986. He subsequently published a book of essays I had compiled on the work of the existentialist philosopher and author Colin Wilson entitled ‘Colin Wilson, a Celebration’ in 1987. My sincere condolences to Jean and family.
Very sad indeed, especially for his family. Always a warm welcome and so generous in his words and deeds.
Thank you Paula for the very nice and honouring way of sharing this.
Dear Paula
Thank you. What a lovely tribute to such a wonderful person, and such a brilliant and generous editor and publisher. I am so proud to have been published by Cecil, and so lucky to have known him. What a loss.
Jane
I was always far too shy to speak to him, despite encountering him multiple times over the years, but he was a lovely lovely man. Thank you for this, Paula.
Thank you all for these wonderful memories about Daddy. Drew’s reminiscences have me in flood of tears
Thank you Paula for your lovely tribute. I felt so fortunate finally to go to one of Cecil and Jean’s parties last year and to hear him entertain us for so many years about aspects of Virginia and Leonard’s life we would never have learned from other sources.
FOR A TRUE MAN OF LETTERS
I met Cecil Woolf in the summer of 2004, at the Back to Bloomsbury Virginia Woolf Conference in London. I’d just heard him speak about his memories of Virginia and Leonard, and nervously approached him in the lobby of the Senate House. He immediately grasped my hand, and, visibly upset that someone had made a rather nasty remark about Leonard as a husband, he peered at me through his glasses with those big, clear eyes (his most striking feature, to my mind), and said, “Can you tell me WHY some people hate Leonard?” I was both startled by the question and flattered that he should ask me, given that I was a graduate student at my second Woolf conference, and what the hell did I know? I answered that I for one don’t hate Leonard, and think that he was the best husband Virginia could have asked for. At which point he gripped my hand more tightly, and a friendship was born.
We began corresponding almost at once. I think every Woolfian who met Cecil spent the first bit of time in his presence overcoming the fact that he KNEW VIRGINIA WOOLF. But happily this was really the least of it, at least for me, and I quickly began to love the man for himself: for his wit, his charm, his ceaseless energy, his tack-sharp mind, his kindness and consideration. And, underneath his charm, there was his biting wit. I will forever cherish the occasional whispered remark in my ear at many an event, remarks calculated to make me giggle and which required whatever poise I possess to keep myself straight-faced. And what might’ve seemed like name-dropping to the outsider was simply a catalog of his friendships and acquaintances. He’d say, “Jean, what year was it that we had Edward Heath over for dinner?” (Yes, that Edward Heath.) Or, “I bumped into Quentin Crisp in Regent’s Park, and he said…” Or, “T. S. Eliot once said to me…” And his priceless anecdote about Duncan Grant, looking long-haired and shaggy in the 1960s, wandering around Piccadilly; when questioned by Cecil about his appearance, Duncan spacily replied, “Well…my barber died.”
Over the years, we stayed in each other’s homes, ate many meals together, drank countless bottles of good wine, watched films together, took walks together. The Woolfs’ kindness to me and my husband John McCoy was boundless. They also quite graciously entertained three groups of my students from Mount St. Joseph University, regaling them with stories of Leonard and Virginia, and letting the students touch the Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant paintings, and the lovely table from the Omega Workshop in their sitting room. I will always remember the quiet room full of students, listening to Cecil speak in his soft, sometimes gravelly voice.
Some other moments of being:
Cecil and Jean coming to my rescue when I was stranded in London for a night on my way to Barcelona, coming to pick me up at the Mornington Crescent tube station, hustling me to their house, planting me at the table where Leonard and Virginia once printed Hogarth Press books, Jean making me a plate of scrambled eggs at one in the morning and Cecil soothing my nerves over my missed flight.
John and Jean and Cecil and I getting miserably lost on the backroads near Georgetown College during the 2010 conference, due to a mixup between the roads called “Lemon’s Mill” and “Old Lemon’s Mill.” The following morning, Jean screamed from the backseat, “Now, John, as you’re driving, remember: It’s Lemon’s Mill, not OLD Lemon’s Mill!” She gripped my arm and said, “Last night, I really thought we were going mad, didn’t you?”
Sitting with Jean and Cecil and John in our pajamas at our dining table late at night after the conference proceedings in Georgetown, drinking wine and eating cheese and talking about the literary life in London.
Watching DOG DAY AFTERNOON (Cecil was obsessed with Al Pacino, though he’d never seen this one) on DVD, which I’d bought for him earlier that day, on a small TV screen in their sitting room, the four of us hunched over together. When Al Pacino screams, “Attica! Attica!” Cecil said, “Only in America. Only in America.”
Interviewing Cecil about his history in publishing, and the colorful figures he encountered there. With his usual modesty, he said, “Surely you’ve had enough. Aren’t you bored?”
His patience with me as I labored over a monograph for him, which I simply couldn’t get finished due to busyness, teaching, and neurosis. When I finally turned it in, he said, “Ah, at last. I have your magnum opus.”
There are others, but some I prefer to keep to myself.
We lost a great man yesterday.
Rest easy, Cecil Woolf. Thank you for being our link to a past that we all long to connect, and such a force of nature in our present.
Thank you for your lovely tribute to Cecil, Paula. We had missed him at the conference this past weekend. So many of us will remember his warmth and wit, and gracious tolerance of all our questions.
CARRIED FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS AND MINDS
Oh I’m so sorry to hear this. What a deeply compassionate and lovely human being. I’m so grateful for the time we all spent with him and Jean.
Oh no. Thanks so much for this lovely tribute and the wonderful collection of photos which reminds us all of Cecil’s sweetness, generosity, and wit.
Oh, so sorry to hear this. I was recently reading his words (by some twist of fate, I published my review of “Virginia Woolf at Home”, for which he provided a foreword, yesterday); and was thinking how wonderful it was to hear from someone who had actually known Virginia. He certainly seems to have led a wonderful life and I wish I had had the pleasure of hearing him talk.
Cecil was a shining star, a superstar in our Woolf community. Like so many others I was in awe when I first met him but found him so gracious & caring. Having my work published by him is one of the highlights of my writing career. How we’ll miss his presence among us.
Very sad to hear this news. Cecil was unfailingly gracious, kind, witty, and generous to everyone he met. He will be missed. Thank you, Paula, for the beautiful tribute.
Sad news, he will be greatly missed by his family, friends and Woolf community. He has meant so much to so many.