Imagine, if you will, a Barbie doll made to represent Virginia Woolf. Well, Mattel did
“We all agreed, over our dead bodies,” said Woolf’s great niece, Virginia Nicholson, who spoke at the recent Cheltenham literature festival, according to The Guardian.
The doll was prim, dressed in Victorian garb, with hair in a bun and a tiny copy of Mrs. Dalloway in her hand.
One might think that the Virginia Woolf Barbie would have been among good company. Mattel has produced and sold commemorative Barbies of Maya Angelou, Billie Jean King, Helen Keller, Ida B. Wells, Dr. Jane Goodall and Queen Camilla. And just last week, Mattel announced the first Diwali Barbie.
This is not the first time Virginia Woolf has been connected to Barbie. When Greta Gerwig’s film named after the iconic doll came out in 2023, I wrote a post detailing what I saw as “The connections between Barbie and Virginia Woolf” — from Gerwig herself to NPR.
