Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘christmas’

Christmas greetings from Virginia Woolf

Posted in art, Monk's House, tagged , , on Saturday 25 December 2021| Leave a Comment »

Let’s pretend Virginia Woolf is sending us all a Christmas card. And what could be more appropriate than this card by renowned collage artist Amanda White?

It features Woolf at home at a snow-covered Monk’s House in Lewes.

Monk’s House Welcome Home

Read more about Virginia Woolf and Christmas

 

Read Full Post »

Christmas shopping with Virginia Woolf

Posted in commodification, tagged , , on Saturday 18 December 2021| Leave a Comment »

If a Virginia Woolf fan is on your Christmas list, here are a few gift suggestions — from a pricey purse to a Woolf society membership — that might bring pleasure. Even if that fan is you.

To the Lighthouse in a stamp print

To the Lighthouse is featured in the stamp in the top row, far right.

Stamp Book: Modern Classics, is a print that turns 42 modern classic books into an oversized sheet of collectable postage stamps, including one for Woolf’s To the Lighthouse.

Each stamp features a graphic inspired by the book and the date of publication in book form. The four-color prints measure 80cm x 60cm and are litho printed with an additional silver foil.

From Dorothy, it is available to purchase for £35 each from wearedorothy.com

The Waves Strapped will strap you

For the tonier among us, there is The Waves Strapped pocketbook at a price of 1.180,00 € from Olympia LeTan.

Constructed of cotton, wool, and silk, this book-shaped bag hinges open, closes with a brass clasp, is lined in a floral print, and includes a shoulder strap. It is a limited, numbered edition and can also be personalized.

Orlando-inspired Fendi fashions

Also out of our price range, but fun to look at anyhow, are designer Kim Jones’s first collection inspired by the Bloomsbury Group, specifically Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. Created for the luxury fashion house Fendi, the spring 2021 fashions are priced comparably to luxury cars.

Virginia Woolf in needlepoint

Winter is a great time to cozy up indoors with a needlework project — and Appletons Virginia Woolf Tapestry Needlepoint Kit may be just the ticket.

Available from Liberty, the $73 price includes all materials, plus shipping. Mine arrived in the four to five days noted on the website.

Once completed, the tapestry can be framed or stitched into a pillow. It is part of a collection that pays tribute to the luminaries of British and Irish literature.

I haven’t started mine yet, but the kit looks pretty cool displayed in its classy black box on my bookshelf.

Puzzling Woolf won’t break the bank

“Jane Austen’s Book Club” puzzle by eeBoo

My last suggestion — and one that is the most cost-effective — is a puzzle that includes Woolf or something related to her.

The EuroGraphics Famous Writers 1000 Piece Puzzle 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 $20.32.

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 $28.99.

Third is 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. It’s 11″ x 11″ and is $23.99.

Gift a society membership to yourself or a friend

International Virginia Woolf Society logo

The most practical and appreciated gift of all may be a membership to one of the Virginia Woolf societies.

Besides developing friendships with other Woolf scholars and common readers, memberships may include subscriptions to publications, access to Zoom events, invitations to in-person events, and other perks.

Get more information at the following links:

 

Read Full Post »

Virginia Woolf and Christmas through the years

Posted in diaries, Monk's House, Virginia Woolf, tagged , , , on Wednesday 25 December 2019| Leave a Comment »

A Virginia Woolf Word Portrait by Akron, Ohio artist John Sokol received as a Christmas gift in 2016. The words of “A Room of One’s Own” form her visage.

How did Virginia Woolf celebrate Christmas? What thoughts did that day bring to her mind? I thumbed through the edited versions of her diaries to find out.

Editor Anne Olivier Bell includes explanations of where Virginia and Leonard were at Christmas through the years. But while the edited diaries include three entries for days near Christmas, only two of Virginia’s entries were written on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

Here is a synopsis of where the Woolfs spent Christmas from 1917 through 1940, along with what they did and what Virginia wrote.

1917: Leonard and Virginia are at Asheham for Christmas, the rented country house in East Sussex where they spent weekends and holidays from 1912 until 1919. (D1 93)

1916-1922: No mention of the Woolfs’ Christmas is included in Volumes I or II of the edited diaries.

1923: Leonard and Virginia spend Christmas at Monk’s House in Rodmell, Sussex, the 16th-century home they began occupying in 1919. (D2 278)

1924: The Woolfs are again at Monk’s House, arriving on Christmas Eve and bringing Angus Davidson with them. Virginia had collaborated with Quentin Bell to produce a Christmas Supplement to the Charleston Bulletin. It recorded scenes in the life of Duncan Grant. (D2 327)

1925: The Woolfs spend Christmas at Charleston, since Monk’s House is in the midst of alterations. Virginia and Quentin again collaborated on a written piece, this time depicting scenes from the life of Clive Bell. (D3 53)

Vanessa Bell painting of Woolf knitting in an armchair at Asheham

1926: Virginia and Leonard spend Christmas in Cornwall at Eagle’s Nest, Zennor with Ka and Will Arnold-Forster. (D3 119)

1927: The Woolf take the train from London to Lewes on Christmas Eve, then drive to Charleston. They spend three nights there before going back to Monk’s House. Vanessa and Clive are away, spending Christmas with his widowed mother in Wiltshire. (D3 169)

1928-1930: No mention of Christmas is included in Volume III of the diaries for these years.

1931: The diary for this year includes the only entry written on Christmas Day. It reads in part:

Friday Xmas morning

Lytton is still alive this morning. We thought he could not live through the night. It was a moonlit night . . . This may be the turn, or may mean nothing. We are lunching with the Keynes’. Now again all ones sense of him flies out & expands & I begin to think of things I shall say to him, so strong is the desire for life—the triumph of life…

Talk to L. last night about death: its stupidity; what he would feel like if I died. He might give up the Press; but how one must be natural. And the feeling of age coming over us: & the hardship of losing friends; & my dislike of the younger generation; & then I reason, how one must understand. And we are happier now. (D4 55)

1932-1935: The Woolfs are at Monk’s House for Christmas. In 1933, Vita Sackville-West and her two sons are guests for tea. (D4 133, 195, 266, 360)

1936-1938: Virginia and Leonard are again at Monk’s House. In 1936, they have lunch and tea with Lydia and Maynard Keynes, beginning a Christmas tradition. This year, the tea is at Tilton. In 1937, the Woolfs host lunch for the four of them. In 1938, tea is at Tilton and Christmas dinner at Charleston. (D4 44, 122, 193)

1939: The Woolfs are at Monk’s House and bicycle to Charleston in a fog for Christmas dinner. (D4 252)

1940: At Monk’s House, Virginia pens a two-part entry dated Tuesday 24 December, which contrasts the soberness of life during wartime with the natural beauty of the countryside.The second portion reads in part:

[Later] 24th Dec. Christmas Eve, & I didnt like to pull the curtains so black were Leonard & Virginia against the sky…and then the walk by the wall; & the church; & the great tithe barn. How England consoles & warms one, in the deep hollows, where the past stands almost stagnant. And the little spire across the fields…

Yes, our old age is not going to be sunny orchard drowse. By shutting down the fire curtain, though, I find I can live in the moment; which is good; why yield a moment to regret or envy or worry? Why indeed? (D5 346)

The doorway to Virginia Woolf’s bedroom on a sunny July day at Monk’s House, Rodmell, Sussex.

Read Full Post »

Virginia Woolf’s Christmas diaries

Posted in diaries, Monk's House, Virginia Woolf, tagged , , , , , on Monday 19 December 2016| 2 Comments »

Virginia Woolf’s diary entries from around Christmas bring into sharp relief the feelings that the festive season stirs. Her pieces are coloured by the unpredictable shifts of British winter weather, express the pull between social event and solitude, and are self-reflective in their review of the past.

The following entries span the twenty-year period from 1920-40 and express the layered and complex connotations that our annual traditions hold.

woolf-xmas

“A Virginia Woolf Christmas – Monks House Welcome Home” design by Amanda White

19 December 1920, Hogarth House

In 1920, Woolf’s entry anticipates her New Year’s return to Rodmell and the comfort and routine this will bring. She imagines the “soft, grey walk” she will take in the dappled cool winter light on the greyed heather and chalky mud of the Sussex Downs. Woolf weaves this expectation for the New Year with the immediacy of Christmas at the end of the entry where we join her in delighting in an early Christmas gift from Leonard:

So we reach the end of the year; which is for us cheerful, I think. For one thing we want to get to Rodmell; to see what has happened to the garden. I shall like a soft grey walk. Then the post. Then reading. Then sitting in the chimney corner […] (I use my new blotter, just given me by L., for the first time).

26 December 1929, Monks House

In 1929 Monks House delivers the atmospheric weather that Woolf had imagined at the beginning of the century. She writes, moreover, of its changeability and its effect on her – producing a “violent Christmas” which gives way to a “serene Boxing day”. Here we also see her desire for solitude in the face of incessant society and the hope that, for once, this will truly be possible:

And I am sitting in my new room, with curtains, fire, table; and two great views; sometimes sun over the brooks and storm over the church. A violent Christmas; a brilliant serene Boxing day. I find it almost incredibly soothing – a fortnight alone – almost impossible to let oneself have it. Relentlessly we have crushed visitors: we will be alone this once, we say; and really, it seems possible.

21 December 1933, 52 Tavistock Square

Christmas’s habit of repeating itself is hinted at in 1929 where the impossibility of retreat seems to be routine. In 1933, Woolf is particularly reflexive on the patterns of Christmas, calling the morning of preparing to go down to Rodmell a “relic”, seemingly aged and outdated:

This is the relic of a morning when I should tidy, pack, write letters and so on. We lunch at quarter to one, and then go, this yellow cold morning. No longer the great tradition that it used to be.

24 December 1940, Monks House

Woolf’s seasonal self-reflection is also present in our final entry from 1940, which begins by fantasising about living at Alciston Farm House but ends on a note of quiet contentment with home at Monks House:

“We lunched with Helen [Anrep at Alciston]; and again ‘I could have fancied living there’. An incredible loveliness. The downs breaking their wave, yet one pale quarry; and all the barns and stacks either a broken pink, or a verdurous green; and then the walk by the wall; and the church; deep hollows, where the past stands almost stagnant. And the little spire across the fields… L. is now cutting logs, and after my rush of love and envy for Alciston farm house, we concluded this [Monks House] is the perfect place.”

Read Full Post »

%d bloggers like this: