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Archive for the ‘novels’ Category

Reading Virginia Woolf during Women’s History Month

Posted in books, novels, tagged , , , , , on Tuesday 19 March 2024| 2 Comments »

We are nearing the tail end of Women’s History Month and who better to read than Virginia Woolf?

Virginia and Leonard Woolf moved into Monk’s House in Rodmell in 1919, and as the Monk’s House guidebook states, “Books dominated the house.” During a 2019 visit, books were the first thing we saw as we entered through the back doorway. They lined the stairs to the second floor.

To that end, I have two resources that give advice on “Where to start with Virginia Woolf.”

At the starting gate with Penguin

“Are you afraid of Virginia Woolf?” asks Penguin. The publisher then advises: “There’s no need: there’s something for everyone in the Modernist writer’s back catalogue.”

The website gives a synopsis and link for seven of Woolf’s novels and/or polemics, along with links to other works related to Woolf, such as Square Haunting: Five Women, Freedom and London Between the Wars (2020).

The recommended Woolf works include the following:

At the starting gate with NYPL

The second comes from the New York Public Library. Their guide on “Where to Start With Virginia Woolf” includes a brief synopsis of each work and recommends reading them in this order:

  1. Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
  2. A Room of One’s Own (1929)
  3. To the Lighthouse (1927)
  4. The Waves (1931)
  5. Orlando (1928)

A book list of her own

Meanwhile, Woolf scholar Maggie Humm’s Twitter post two years ago on World Book Day included a list of the books Woolf liked and disliked most in 1924, 100 years ago.

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Virginia Woolf’s Orlando now in public domain

Posted in events, novels, tagged , on Tuesday 2 January 2024| Leave a Comment »

Thousands of works, including Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, published in 1928, entered the public domain in the U.S. yesterday, joining the early versions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

Other Woolf works in the public domain include To the Lighthouse (1927), Mrs. Dalloway (1925), Jacob’s Room (1922), Night and Day (1919), and The Voyage Out (1915).

In the U.S., any work published before 1923 is in the public domain. Works published between 1923 and 1977 generally receive copyright protection for 95 years from the date of their publication. In 2012, writers who died before 1942 entered the pubic domain.

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Virginia Woolf muses about ‘The Hours’ 100 years ago today

Posted in diaries, Mrs. Dalloway, novels, quotes, The Hours, tagged , , on Tuesday 29 August 2023| 1 Comment »

One hundred years ago today, on Saturday, 29 August 1923, Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary about the novel she was writing. Originally titled The Hours, it would be published in 1925 as Mrs. Dalloway.

I’ve been battling for ever so long with ‘The Hours’, which is proving one of my most tantalising & refractory of books. Parts are so bad, parts so good; I’m much interested; can’t stop making it up yet — yet. What is the matter with it? But I want to freshen myself, not deaden myself, so will say no more. Only I must note this odd symptom; a conviction that I shall go on, see it through, because it interests me to write it. — Diary 2, 262.

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Woolf Season finishes up at @LitCamb

Posted in events, novels, Woolf Courses, tagged , , , on Sunday 25 April 2021| Leave a Comment »

Literature Cambridge will finish its first Woolf Season with the last of Virginia Woolf’s major books.

Here is what remains on the schedule:

• Anna Snaith on The Years (1937), Sun. 2 May, 6 p.m.
• Claire Davison on Three Guineas (1938), Sat. 8 May, 6 p.m.
• Claire Nicholson on Between the Acts (1941): Costume, Sat. 29 May, 6 p.m.
• Karina Jukobowicz on Between the Acts (1941): Dispersed Are We, Sat. 5 June, 10 a.m.

Two repeats

And, in case you missed them, two earlier lectures will be repeated:

• Claudia Tobin, Art in To the Lighthouse (1927), Sun. 16 May, 6 p.m.
• Emma Sutton and Jeremy Thurlow, Music in The Waves (1931), Sun. 30 May, 6 p.m.

All sessions are live on Zoom. All times are British Summer Time. Sessions can be booked online.

Trudi Tate and Karina Jacubowicz are just two of the lecturers in the Literature Cambridge’s online courses on Virginia Woolf via Zoom.

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Mapping Woolf’s novels

Posted in London, novels, tagged , , on Thursday 15 October 2020| Leave a Comment »

Location is important in Virginia Woolf’s novels. And a page on the Londonist website maps the locations used in all ten of her novels. It also points out key factors about the locations.

Those points include:

  • Bloomsbury doesn’t figure all that frequently.
  • Piccadilly is her most-used location.
  • Only half of her novels are set principally in London.
  • Her novels are quite international in setting.

The map points reflect locations mentioned or visited in the following 10 books:

The Voyage Out (1915), Night and Day (1919), Jacob’s Room (1922), Mrs Dalloway (1925), To The Lighthouse (1927), Orlando: A Biography (1928), The Waves (1931), Flush: A Biography (1933), The Years (1937), Between The Acts (1941)

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