Once immersed in the Woolf world of a century ago, one can hardly miss and not admire Virginia and Leonard’s Gastfreundschaft – their practice of hospitality; to friends and acquaintance, in the interest of intellectual curiosity and that of professional opportunism, and interrupted only during the periods of Virginia’s illness. An invitation to the Woolf’s – be it in London or Rodmell – was sought and often wrought with danger, but always there the lingering promise of shared intimacy, and a ‘next time’.
Here, then, as a good host, and in accordance with the ancient practice of xenia, I gladly throw open a room on this page – a guest room if you will. Here, others have their say.
To be collected: Assorted materials that come my way – reprints of essays and articles when permitted, and often from The Conversation – well, as I write, only from there! Unfortunately, very few online publications afford this courtesy these days – so much for hospitality! Otherwise, a rather random list of external links (that remain ‘live’ to be hoped!) that I have not necessarily referred to elsewhere nor require (as I write) a pesky subscription, and, from time to time, book and publication recommendations that I find particularly noteworthy.
Internal Links
- Jessica Gildersleeve on the relevance of Woolf’s manifesto today: “Guide to the classics: A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf’s feminist call to arms” in The Conversation, September 23, 2020.
- Matyáš Moravec on Bergson’s philosophical idea (of time): “A philosophical idea that can help us understand why time is moving slowly during the pandemic” in The Conversation, December 2, 2020. [Woolf is not mentioned in this essay, rather more so Proust, and though the questions posed are absolutely contemporary (living in the time of a pandemic!), as I believe I have maintained elsewhere, I am convinced that many of the ideas being purported by Bergson were finding their way, probably unbeknownst to her, into Woolf’s own writing and the development of her own literary representation of “lived time” – and the fallibility of memory.]
- Emma Sutton on Woolf & Classical Music: “How Virginia Woolf’s work was shaped by music” in The Conversation, March 26, 2021.
- Jess Cotton on Woolf on Illness: “Virginia Woolf: writing death and illness into the national story of post-first world war Britain” in The Conversation, March 26, 2021.
- Mark Byron on Woolf’s very own copy of The Voyage Out: “Virginia Woolf’s copy of her first novel was found in a University of Sydney library. What do her newly digitised notes reveal?” in The Conversation, July 21, 2023. Her very own copy, annotated and available for all to see.
External Links
- Janet Malcolm on Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell: “A House of One’s Own” in The New Yorker, June 5, 1995 (external link). See blog entry from June 17 2021.
- James M. Haule on Louise A. DeSalvo’s reconstruction of Melymbrosia on the way to The Voyage Out. Haule, James. “Virginia Woolf.” Contemporary Literature, vol. 23, no. 1, 1982, pp. 100–04. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1208147. Accessed 1 Aug. 2023.
- James M. Haule on Woolf’s revisions to The Voyage Out: Haule, James M. “Virginia Woolf’s Revisions of The Voyage out: Some New Evidence.” Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 42, no. 3, 1996, pp. 309–21. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/441765. Accessed 1 Aug. 2023.
- Claire Messud teasing from the archives Woolf’s contributions to The Yale Review. See blog entry from March 24 2024.