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Archive for the ‘Woolf as Commodity’ Category

A puzzling question: Why is Woolf depicted as a blue-eyed blonde?

Posted in coronavirus, Virginia Woolf, Woolf as Commodity, tagged , , , , , on Thursday 24 September 2020| 4 Comments »

What color were Virginia Woolf’s eyes? That has turned out to be a puzzling question that has me still searching for the answer, while begging forgiveness for the pun.

“Jane Austen’s Book Club” puzzle by eeBoo, which depicts Woolf (front, far right, as a blue-eyed blonde)

The question occurred to me after completing a 1,000-piece eeBoo puzzle titled “Jane Austen’s Book Club.” Woolf, along with Austen, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, and Zora Neale Huston, are pictured sipping tea, alongside some of their famous titles.

Wasn’t she a brown-eyed brunette?

The puzzle was fun to put together and I was happy to add it to my collection of Woolf puzzles. I am even planning to frame it. But it left me wondering why artist Jennifer Orkin Lewis pictured Woolf as a blue-eyed blonde.

All of the paintings and photos I have seen of Woolf depict her with dark hair. And although her father, Leslie Stephen, is said to have had steely blue eyes, I have never seen her described that way.

In the famous color photos of Woolf by Gisele Freund, taken in her Tavistock Square home in London just before World War II broke out in 1939, Woolf’s eyes appear to be brown. It was the last portrait taken of Woolf and the only one in color. I have also seen Woolf’s eyes described as grey, although that source does not seem reliable. But never blue.

So I have emailed the artist to ask for some insight into her color choices. I’ll let you know what I hear.

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Doing jigsaw puzzles with Virginia Woolf

Posted in coronavirus, Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando, Woolf as Commodity, tagged on Saturday 16 May 2020| 5 Comments »

By the second week of March, the sale of jigsaw puzzles soared, due to coronavirus quarantines. With puzzle companies closed, as they were not considered essential businesses, puzzles became scarce and prices went up.

I was one of the many who searched online to find puzzles that looked like fun and wouldn’t break the bank. I found a few. But I never thought I’d find any that included Virginia Woolf. Today I did.

Puzzling Woolf

First, there’s the EuroGraphics Famous Writers 1000 Piece Puzzle, which features Woolf smack dab in the middle of 75 other famous writers. Its finished size is 19.25″ x 26.5″ and the cost is $29.79.

Second, there’s the Re-marks Bestsellers Panoramic 1000 Piece Puzzle, which includes covers of many best-selling books, including two of Woolf’s — Orlando and Mrs. Dalloway. It measures 17″ x 9″ and the cost is $17.99.

I bought both for my collection of Woolf items.

Getting in Woolf’s head

You can also get inside Virginia Woolf’s head — and put it together — with the Virginia Woolf Paper Craft Model. This pocket-size item describes itself as “The Head is a Puzzle.” It includes eight model sheets and 22 precut puzzle pieces you assemble by connecting tabs. I’m skipping this one.

 

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Virginia Woolf as superhero

Posted in Virginia Woolf, Woolf as Commodity, tagged , , , , on Monday 7 September 2015| 1 Comment »

Virginia Woolf is already a superhero at my house, but she may soon be one on theSuperhero Woolf commercial market as well.

One day, as I sat at my laptop in a room of my own, my eight-year-old twin grandchildren pulled Virginia Woolf down from her shelf, grabbed Wonder Woman, and had the two battling each other, as well as Spiderman and Aquaman.

When Woolf seemed to be losing against the comic book heroes, I told my grandchildren that she had a superpower of her own: The power of the pen. That stopped them in their tracks.

Now a company called Little Giants is launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund a toy line that will include Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Ghandi and Andy Warhol.

Yes, all four figures are men — and three out of four are white. But the company says that if all goes well, it will add Woolf to the lineup, along with Frieda Kahlo.

I want to see that. And maybe my grandchildren will too.

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Could Virginia Woolf best Joyce and Eliot in a fist fight?

Posted in films, Woolf as Commodity, Woolf sightings, You Tube, tagged , , , , on Friday 10 July 2015| Leave a Comment »

Virginia Woolf, pugilist, is featured in a Kenyon College video designed to market the Ohio liberal arts school to prospective students.

In the video “Kenyon College: Beneath The Beech – Thomas Hawks Fears Virginia Woolf,” Kenyon Senior Chace Beech interviews English professor Thomas Hawks about the likely street fighting skills of writers James Joyce, T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf.

Hawk’s assessment? “Woolf could probably take them both.”

The video, which begins with the line “Words… why do we need them?”  is part of a quirky series of promotional videos produced by the college titled “Beneath the Beech.”

“I think they show how approachable and engaged Kenyon professors are with the students,” Beech said.

 

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Woolf collection on sale for $4.5 million

Posted in Virginia Woolf, Woolf as Commodity, Woolf Letters, tagged , , , , , , on Friday 7 June 2013| 1 Comment »

A CNBC story reports on a collection of Virginia Woolf’s letters and other items that is for sale en bloc for $4 million. The letters are beingCNBC letter sold by Glenn Horowitz Bookseller in Manhattan.

They include letters from Woolf to her nephew Julian Bell, as well as letters from Leonard Woolf, Vanessa Bell and Vita Sackville-West.

The most poignant, said Horowitz during the CNBC interview, is one written by Vita Sackville-West, describing Woolf’s suicide and the days leading up to the discovery of her body. “It’s really one of the most touching collections of letters I’ve had the privilege of handling,” Horowitz said.

The private collection was built over a period of 40 years by William B. Beekman, who started collecting Woolf items as a Harvard undergraduate before Quentin Bell’s 1972 biography brought her renewed interest from the academy, according to Horowitz’s site. Included in the collection are items that span Woolf’ life, such as photographs, letters, inscribed books and dust jackets.

Although the CNBC story put the value of the collection at $4 million, the Horowitz website prices it at $4.5 million. The collection was put on the market and exhibited in East Hampton last July.

In 2011, Horowitz published a digital catalog of Bloomsbury materials to its website. Virginia Woolf, The Hogarth Press, and The Bloomsbury Group contains more than 150 first editions, association copies, letters and more.

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