Vita Sackville-West | Blogging Woolf

Archive for the ‘Vita Sackville-West’ Category

Love from Vita to Virginia: A podcast

Posted in 21st century Woolf, Vita and Virginia, Vita Sackville-West, Woolf online, Woolf sightings, tagged Virginia Woolf podcasts, Vita and Virginia on Friday 21 January 2011| 2 Comments »

Yesterday was the day in 1926 that Vita Sackville-West wrote a love letter to Virginia Woolf.

You can listen to the lovely podcast of Garrison Keillor reading the letter onPBS’ The Writer’s Almanac website here or read the transcript here.

Thanks to Karen Levenback who sent the VW Listserv the link.

Nicolson’s love of the Sissinghurst land

Posted in books, contemporary fiction, Sissinghurst, Vita Sackville-West, tagged Anne Fernald, Sissinghurst review, The White Garden on Saturday 2 October 2010| 1 Comment »

Sissinghurst. It was home for Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson and their sons. It is the site of one of the most celebrated gardens in English history. It is the location for Stephanie Barron’s mystery, The White Garden. And for Adam Nicolson, grandson of Vita and Harold, it is a working farm.

Anne Fernald reviews Nicolson’s book, Sissinghurst, for Open Letters Monthly. She traces the history of the property through its many incarnations and documents Nicolson’s love of the land.

Nicolson’s Sissinghurst story was also the subject of an eight-part BBC series last year, but it is not available online. However, the Kent News published a story on the project.

Fernald teaches at Fordham University and is currently at work on the Cambridge University Press edition of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. You can read more from her at Fernham.

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Who knew? Woolf was a knitter

Posted in art, Sissinghurst, Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, tagged Virginia Woolf and knitting on Wednesday 15 September 2010| 5 Comments »

NPG 5933. Virginia Woolf (née Stephen) by Vanessa Bell (née Stephen), 1912. Oil on board, 15 3⁄4 x 13 3⁄8 inches (400 x 340 mm). National Portrait Gallery, London

If I paid more attention to painting details, I would have known that Virginia Woolf was a knitter.

Since I don’t, I had to depend on Mark Hussey‘s VWoolf Listserv alert to a knitting website article about Woolf and knitting, “Did you know Virginia Woolf was a knitter?”.

In it, the writer cites Vanessa Bell’s small portrait of her sister, painted while Virginia was working on the draft of The Voyage Out, published in 1915. In the portrait, pictured at right. Virginia is knitting.

Also mentioned are:

Dame Edith Sitwell’s reminiscence about Virginia: “I enjoyed talking to her, but thought nothing of her writing. I considered her ‘a beautiful little knitter.'”
Virginia’s 1912 pronouncement to Leonard: “Knitting is the saving of life.”

Addendum: This bit of news has generated discussion on the VWoolf Listserv. Steve Posin contributed this tidbit: While reading the Vita Sackville West biography, he learned that Vita supplied Virginia with knitting wool as late as 1941 from sheep raised at Sissinghurst.

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In memoriam to Virginia Woolf

Posted in books, in memoriam, river ouse, Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, You Tube, tagged In memoriam Virginia Woolf on Sunday 28 March 2010| 10 Comments »

It was 69 years ago today, March 28, 1941, that Virginia Woolf left behind Leonard, Monk’s House, and two suicide notes and walked across the Sussex Downs.

With stones weighing down her coat pockets, she waded into the River Ouse and drowned.

In memoriam, we repeat the last line of the memorial poem Vita Sackville-West wrote in tribute to Woolf, which was published in The Observer in April of 1941. It contains more truth than Sackville-West could have imagined.

“She now has gone/Into the prouder world of immortality,” Sackville-West wrote.

For a touching video that pays homage to what Woolf accomplished during her life — and what she could have accomplished if she had lived on — watch “The Adventures of Virginia Woolf” on You Tube.

For an earlier memoriam to Woolf, click here. You can also read the Associated Press “Today in History,” which mentions Woolf.

Or read more about the response of her contemporaries to her untimely death in the 2005 book, Afterwords: Letters on the Death of Virginia Woolf, edited by Sybil Oldfield, and in the post below, ” Bloomsbury archives newly open to public.”

Editor’s Note: This was originally posted on March 28, 2008. I have included new information and am reposting it today in Woolf’s honor.

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Last-minute gift ideas with Woolf connection

Posted in books, Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, Woolf and feminism, Woolf Letters, tagged Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, writers' houses on Wednesday 23 December 2009| Leave a Comment »

Whatever holiday you celebrate, you may need a last-minute gift idea for a favorite reader. Here are a few books that could suffice. The bonus is that each has a Virginia Woolf connection, however slim.

Writers’ Houses is a book produced by Francesca Premoli-Droulers that includes wonderful photographs of the homes of writers. Those of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia are included. Read more.
A Truth Universally Acknowledged: Thirty-Three Great Writers on Why We Read Jane Austen, edited by Susannah Carson, includes Virginia’s thoughts about the great novelist of Regency England. She is among 33 authors whose opinions are included in this volume, published by Random House. Read more. And check out a post about the book on a super Austen blog I just discovered, Jane Austen’s World.
The newly released The Letters of T.S. Eliot, Volume Two: 1923-1925 includes letters from Virginia. It is edited by Valerie Eliot and Hugh Haughton and published by Faber Faber. Volume Two is being published simultaneously with the revised edition of Volume One of the letters, which covers the years from 1898 to 1922. Read more.
A new translation of The Second Sex By Simone de Beauvoir replaces all of the original material removed by its original translator. This material includes long extracts from works by Virginia Woolf, Sophie Tolstoy and Colette, among others. Translators Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier Jonathan Cape also corrected mistranslations of philosophical terms and punctuation. These changes, along with the replacement of approximately 15 percent of the original content — particularly from sections on history and literature — are said to make a meaningful impact for readers interested in gaining greater understanding of Beauvoir’s views on women’s lives. Read more.