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This June, Granta Books will publish new ‘unepurgated’ editions of Virginia Woolf’s complete diaries, each introduced by a noted contemporary writer.

The five volumes of Woolf’s Diary edited by Anne Olivier Bell, along with A Passionate Apprentice: The Early Journals 1897-1909, edited by Mitchell E. Leaska

They are based on Anne Olivier Bell’s 1977–84 editions. But since Olivier Bell promises in her “Editor’s Preface” to The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Vol. II: 1920-1924 that “nothing has been omitted” from the edition she edited (ix),  I have to wonder what makes the Granta Books editions “unexpurgated.”

What are these new editions including that the previous editions did not? I guess we will have to wait until June to find out.

The volumes and their forewords

The volume divisions of the new editions remain the same. However, each volume will contain a foreword by a different writer.

  • Vol. 1: 1915–19: Virginia Nicholson
  • Vol. 2: 1920–4: Adam Phillips
  • Vol. 3: 1925–30: Olivia Laing
  • Vol. 4: 1931–5: Margo Jefferson
  • Vol. 5: 1936–41: Siri Hustvedt

Each of the five new hardbacks features a modern black and white photograph on the cover and will be priced at £30.

The back story of the diaries

Olivier Bell, wife of Woolf’s nephew Quentin Bell, gave an account of her work editing Virginia’s diaries in the Bloomsbury Workshop publication, Editing Virginia Woolf’s Diary (1990).

In that volume and in the “Editor’s Preface” to The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Vol. I: 1915-1919, she shares the fact that before Quentin started researching his biography of Virginia, Leonard Woolf had Virginia’s 30 volumes of diaries and journals, which were written between 1915 and 1941, transcribed and typed up by Kathleen Williams (D1 viii).

However, because Leonard had used scissors to cut out the sections that he included in A Writer’s Diary (1954), Olivier Bell had to type up the missing sections and piece the transcripts back together (Editing, p. 10) for use in establishing a note card chronology for Quentin’s Virginia Woolf: A Biography (1972).

After Leonard’s death and the settling of his estate, Virginia’s diaries were taken from the Westminster Bank in Lewes in 1970 and sent to the Berg Collection in the New York Public Library, where they now remain.

More than four-fifths of her diary entries had not been included in A Writer’s Diary. Thus, “an unabridged publication of the complete series of diaries was decided upon” and Olivier Bell would edit them (Editing 16). She was a natural because, she argues, after helping Quentin with his biographical research and marrying into the family, she was already familiar with the material — all 2,317 pages worth — along with many of the characters, the country, the houses, and more.

The project became “too much to accomplish single-handed,” so she enlisted the help of Andrew McNeillie of Oxford to help her. Some of the editing work involved detection — ferreting out Woolf’s vague references to to such things as “this old manor house” at Hounslow or “Miss Arnold who used to lie drunk” (Editing 18-19).

Near the end of her account in Editing Virginia Woolf’s Diary, Olivier Bell writes:

After some twenty years working with her diaries I still find them wonderfully enjoyable — brilliant, funny, informative, moving, a record of her life and observations set down with unsurpassed felicity of language by a woman of extraordinary intelligence, courage, humour and imagination: in short, a genius (23).

More on the new editions

For further information on the new editions of Woolf’s diaries, see pages 26–7 of Granta’s online catalogue:

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Today is the first day of Women’s History Month. And Virginia Woolf should be on every book list, right? But she is not.

She is included, rightfully, on a list of “30 Books That Every Woman Should Read from Refinery 29. The must-read book by Woolf is her 1929 polemic, A Room of One’s Own. No surprise there.

Woolf on — and off – the list

Woolf is listed as a “Classic Female Author” on the Penguin Random House Women’s History Month Reading Challenge and her 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway is on the list.

Simon and Schuster ignored her, as did CNN. But Powell’s Books includes Woolf on a list of “Twenty-Five Women to Read Before You Die.”

The New York Public Library left her out of their “31 Books for March” list but included lots of other interesting women authors. And they did include her in a more extensive list. Orlando (1928) is on their longer list of “365 Books by Women Authors to Celebrate International Women’s Day All Year.”

The NYPL has also put together a Woolf reading list that aligns with their Virginia Woolf: A Modern Mind exhibit, which ends March 5. You can view it online.

Take a look back

Last year, Anne Fernald, a professor of English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Issues at Fordham University, discussed how feminist writers and scholars think through Woolf today. You can find more information and watch the video of her 2022 presentation sponsored by the South Orange Public Library.

Submit your info

If you sight Woolf in any information related to Women’s History Month this year, please add the details in the comments section below.

 

 

 

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It’s Valentine’s Day. And in Virginia Woolf’s Diary: Volume 2, there is no entry for Feb. 14, 1923, 100 years ago today. So instead I have pulled a quote from her Feb. 14, 1922, diary, 99 years ago.

In it, she does not mention Valentine’s Day, but she does share a bit of detail about her dinner at Hogarth House, their home in Richmond from 1915-1924.

We dine over the fire. L. has his tray on a little stool. We are as comfortable as cottagers (looked at through the window) . . . Diary: Volume 2, pg. 161.

The fireplace in the dining room at Monk’s House, the Woolf’s summer home in Sussex from 1919 until their deaths.

 

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In my little corner of Ohio, it is unseasonably warm today. And while I haven’t walked around my garden to see what spring blossoms might be coming up early, I did peruse Virginia Woolf’s diary entry made one hundred years ago today. In it, she does something like that.

On Feb. 10, 1923, while living in Richmond, Woolf wrote a long diary entry. On that day, she included her observations of the first signs of spring and the weather as she walked to the local cemetery, along with details of her recently developed daily schedule:

The spring the spring, I sing in imitation of Wagner, & saw a gorze bush set with soft yellow buds. Then we got into the Park, where the rain drove dogs & humans home, & so back on the stroke of three. It is now our plan (a day old) to walk from 2 to 3; print from 3 to 5; delay our tea; & so make headway. – Diary: Volume 2, pg. 233.

She also relates an earlier conversation with Mary* in which she discussed her mood that winter, which she thought had been affected by the genre of writing in which she had been involved:

But I suppose I talked most, & about myself. How I’d been depressed since Jan. 3rd. We ran it to earth, I think, by discovering that I began journalism on that day. Last Thursday, I think, I returned to fiction, to the instant nourishment & well being of my entire day. – Diary: Volume 2, pg. 234.

*Mary is not identified in this entry in Volume 2 of the diary, although she is likely Mary Hutchinson, as Alice Lowe mentions in the comments below.

Early spring blooms picked and arranged by my granddaughter when she was just 10.

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The Woolf Salon usually meets monthly on Zoom. Anyone can join the conversation.

After a four-month hiatus, the Woolf Salon Conspirators have announced that they are  starting up the 2023 Woolf Salon Project with Woolf Salon No. 23: “The Lives of the Obscure.”

Where and when

The discussion will take place on Zoom Friday, Feb. 17, at 3 p.m. ET (New York). Other time zones are listed below, but please double check them!

2 p.m. CT (Chicago)
12 p.m. PT (Los Angeles)
5 p.m. Brasilia
8 p.m. GMT (London)
9 p.m. CET (Paris)
11 p.m. MSK (Moscow)
7 a.m. AEDT Saturday (Sydney)

The essay and where to find it

The 23rd salon will feature a rich conversation about Woolf’s essay (from The Common Reader [1925]), “The Lives of the Obscure.”

You’ll find the essay in any copy of The Common Reader, in Vol. 4 of The Essays of Virginia Woolf (pp. 118–45), and on Project Gutenberg.

How to join

Anyone can join the group, which usually meets on one Friday of each month via Zoom and focuses on a single topic or text. Just contact woolfsalonproject@gmail.com to sign up for the email list and receive the Zoom link.

Background on the Salon

The Salon Conspirators — Benjamin Hagen, Shilo McGiff, Amy Smith, and Drew Shannon — began the Woolf Salon Project in July 2020 to provide opportunities for conversation and conviviality among Woolf-interested scholars, students, and common readers during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

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