The Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain‘s Annual Birthday Lecture 2025, in honor of Virginia Woolf’s birthday, will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 25, the date of her birth in 1882.
This year, the lecture will be given by Eleanor McNees, Professor of English at the University of Denver and the topic will be “Channelling/Challenging Leslie Stephen: How Should Virginia Woolf Read the Victorians?”
Lecture location is the Claudia Jones Room in Camden Town Hall, 5 Judd Street, London WC1H 9JE. The location is a short walk from either Kings Cross or Euston stations.
The lecture will be followed by a birthday cake and wine/soft drink reception. Attendees will receive a printed copy of the lecture.
Cost and payments
Cost: £25 for members of the Society and £30 for non-members.
Payment may be made by:
cheque payable to the Society and sent to Lindsay Martin, 12 Elm Park Road, London N21 2HN
bank transfer to: account name: Virginia Woolf Society GB, Sort Code: 09-06-66, account no.: 40411044
PayPal to lindsay.martin@cantab.net
In each case use ‘ABL25’ to indicate clearly what the payment is for. Tickets will not be issued. Ticket holders names will be on a registration list at the lecture.
“On this day in 1922 Virginia Woolf’s third novel, Jacob’s Room, was first published by the Hogarth Press. Approximately 1,200 copies were printed, priced at 7s 6d.
It was the first of Woolf’s novels to be published by her own company; from then on, all her works were published under its imprint. The printer was R. & R. Clark of Edinburgh.
Woolf’s Diary entry of Monday 26 January 1920 – the day after her 38th birthday – reveals her first thoughts about ‘a new form for a new novel’:
Suppose one thing should open out of another – as in An Unwritten Novel – only not for 10 pages but 200 or so – doesn’t that give the looseness & lightness I want: doesnt that get closer & yet keep form & speed, & enclose everything, everything? . . . I figure that the approach will be entirely different this time: no scaffolding; scarcely a brick to be seen; all crepuscular, but the heart, the passion, humour, everything as bright as fire in the mist. . . . conceive mark on the wall, K. G. & unwritten novel taking hands & dancing in unity. – Virginia Woolf, Diary 2, pp. 13–14. B. J. Kirkpatrick and Stuart N. Clarke, A Bibliography of Virginia Woolf, 4th edition, 1997, pp. 27–8.
Below is information from their Facebook post of Sept. 29.
Although recently known as the Dowager Countess, Violet Crawley, in the TV series “Downton Abbey” (2000–15), Smith played Virginia Woolf in Edna O’Brien’s play “Virginia” in 1981. She won her third Evening Standard Theatre Award for her performance at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, beginning January 29, 1981.
In that same year the play script was published under the Hogarth Press imprint, with photographs of Maggie Smith and Virginia Woolf on the cover.You can see pictures from the book and the programme below.
The Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain offers many member benefits. One of them is a reading group for those who want to talk about the works of Virginia Woolf and some of her Bloomsbury friends and contemporaries.
Discussions, which take place either online or face to face, allow members to find connections, influences and similarities among the works read. Members discuss their experiences of reading the work, whether it’s their first or hundredth time, as well as what themes or motifs they notice and what they liked best or least and why.
Night and Day up next
Night and Day (1919) is the next Woolf work up for discussion. Date: Friday, August 30, 2024 Time: 5 p.m. BST or noon EST. Where: online
How to join the society
Email membershipvwsgb@gmail.com to join the society, or onlinevwsgb@gmail.com for further information and queries about the reading group.
In the Brighton tradition, it joins buses named after other remarkable residents, including Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell.
Members of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain get ready to hop aboard the Leonard Woolf bus in Brighton. Photo by Marielle O’Neill.
“It was with great pleasure that members of the VWSGB celebrated the newly-named Leonard Woolf bus in Brighton yesterday, ” said Claire Nicholson, society chair, the day after the group’s bus ride.
“Congratulations to Marielle O’Neill who led the campaign to have a bus dedicated to Leonard, which now joins its partner, the Virginia Woolf bus. If you visit Brighton, perhaps you might catch one of them!”
Thanks go out
The society thanks Maria Caulfield MP, Cllr Paul Mellor and the Board of Deputies of British Jews for their valuable support and to Brighton and Hove Bus Company for honouring Leonard Woolf. Thanks also go to Suren Paul, Chair of the Leonard Woolf Society, and Claire Nicholson for their encouragement.
“Leonard Woolf’s influence on politics from international relations with the League of Nations to local community activism in Brighton is significant,” O’Neill pointed out.
The cover of Issue No. 72 – January 2023 of the Virginia Woolf Bulletin features the Brighton & Hove Virginia Woolf bus.
“His pioneering publishing work with the Hogarth Press is also to be admired. I’m delighted to see the Leonard Woolf bus, which seems a suitable way of honouring Leonard given his commitment to community service and environmental sustainability.”
About the buses and routes
The bus is one of the brand new accessible Coaster buses that have two wheelchair bays, dementia friendly flooring and seating, audio and visual next-stop announcements and an onboard loop system.
The bus number is changeable but is most likely to be doing either 12/12A/12X or 14/14C routes. These buses all serve Sealife Centre, Old Steine, North Street and Brighton Station.
Members of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain raise a glass to the new Leonard Woolf bus in Brighton. Photo by Marielle O’Neill, second from right.
