Virginia Woolf Bulletin, issue no. 45 (January 2014), no. 46 (May 2014), no. 47 (September 2014)

Abstract

Drobot reviews Virginia Woolf Bulletin. In her article Writing Back through our Mothers: Julia Stephen's Influence on the Work of Virginia Woolf, Marion Dell details how Julia Stephens "fostered Woolf's writing from early childhood.

*** Virginia Woolf Bulletin, issue no. 45 (January 2014), no. 46 (May 2014), no. 47 (September 2014), Fairhaven, Charnleys Lane, Banks, Southport PR9 8 HJ, UK, Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain

The Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain published the Virginia Woolf Bulletin three times a year. In this review I will go through the three issues published in 2014.

In the editorial of issue no. 45, Stuart N. Clarke writes about the way the concept of the common reader is problematic after listening to the discussion on BBC Radio 3 Night Waves. The conclusion to the discussions was that the common reader was a woman. According to Clarke, it is a problematic conclusion. "Woolf's repeated use of male pronouns" has to do with it being "the normal way of being all-encompassing before the 1970s" (p. 3).

Stephen Barkway presents a letter from Woolf to H.R. Wackrill dated November 5 1937. This letter is an occasion to present some information on art historian H.R. Wackrill and his relation with Roger Fry and Virginia Woolf. Fry wrote the foreword to his first published essay A Note on Modern Painting. We do not know if Woolf read the book accompanying the quoted letter, The Inscription over the Gate: A Study of William Blake.

In Some Press Opinions (Part Three), Stuart N. Clarke quotes reviews of Woolf's novel Night and Day: "this gives us a chance to see reviews that we know the Woolfs read, and to ponder on the choices they made the excerpts" (p. 7). Among the remarks in bold are the following: "One's expectations were strong after The Voyage Out. They are satisfied by Night and Day. The fine shades of critical apprehension of character and emotion here form themselves into a richer, more vital drama" (p. 8), by Edward Garner, in The Daily News, 17 November 1919.

"There is an atmosphere clinging to every one; it is, so to speak, their inner consciousness made visible. We seem to know what they are doing and thinking even when they are not there. For in every written story there is a long part unwritten. With most novelists this is simply the omitted part; it is leftnot only untold but unhinted; but with Mrs Woolf we are aware of it all the time" (p. 14), by E.A.B., New Commonwealth.

After some reviews comparing Woolf's novel to those by Austen, Brontë, and James, the series of reviews is ended by one where the following is written in bold: "It is a novel which owes nothing to any other and hardly anything to the ordinary mechanism of fiction" (p. 30) - The Field, The Country Gentleman's Newspaper, 29 November 1919.

In Notes and Queries, Elizabeth Dalloway's Omnibus, Stuart N. Clarke quotes the fragment from the novel expressing Elizabeth's feeling of freedom while on the bus after leaving Miss Killman. No. 11 is one of the most famous bus routes in London. However, we are toldthat Elizabeth did not take a "regular no.1" but a "pirate" as Woolf underlines. A history of pirate busses is then presented in this article: "this colorful episode in the history of London's buses came to an end in 1933 with the creation of the London Passenger Transport Board" (p. 36).

The Virginia Woolf Today section covers events related to Woolf and her work. Also, interest in her works is mentioned. For instance, in an article in theSunday Times from 21 July 2013 about what celebrities are taking on holiday, we find out that Martha Lane Fox is taking Woolf's Diary. An article from the Observer from August 13 discusses how Woolf "came up with a figure of 500 pounds a year that would enable you to lead a good life" (p. 39).

The following books are included in the reviews section: Virginia Woolf's Essayism, by Randi Saloman, Shell Shock and the Modernist Imagination, by Wyatt Bonikowski, The Charleston Bulletin Supplements, by Virginia Woolf and Quentin Bell, edited by Claudia Olk, Virginia Woolf's Garden: The Story of the Garden at Monks House, by Caroline Zoob, The Angel of Charleston: Grace Higgens, Housekeeper to the Bloomsbury Group, by Stewart MacKay, and The Years, by Virginia Woolf, edited by Anna Snaith.

This issue of the Bulletin ends with a Report of Society Event - Virginia in Warwickshire, 1-6 September 2013, with the events presented by days, by Lynne Newland and Stephen Barkway.

The following issue, published in May, begins with Stephen Barkway quoting a letter from Virginia Woolf to Arthur Waley dated January 11 1928. The note that follows shows the relationship of Waley to Bloomsbury and to Woolf. "Arthur Waley was a well-known translator from the Chinese and Japanese and was probably introduced into Bloomsbury through his Cambridge connections and Roger Fry" (p. 6) . Woolf gave a positive review to Waley's translation of The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki. She thanks him in her preface to the novel Orlando. However, Waley's name appeared on a list Against Orlando written by Bloomsbury antagonist Cyril Connoly.

The text The Mark on the Shutter: or, a Small Boy's Conscience by Desmond MacCarthy follows. Stuart N. Clarke writes a note to it where he states that this story is homage to Woolf's Mark on the Wall judging by the similarities between the two titles. Woolf read it and this is how she knew so much about boys' schools, according to an exchange of letters between her and Rylands after The Waves was published.

In her article Writing Back through our Mothers: Julia Stephen's Influence on the Work of Virginia Woolf, Marion Dell details how Julia Stephens "fostered Woolf's writing from early childhood. [...] She valued and disseminated Woolf's work, engineering opportunities for her writing and publication" (p. 18). The influence of Julia Stephen on the following writings by Woolf is analyzed in this article: A Room of One's Own, To the Lighthouse, Freshwater, Orlando, Kew Gardens, Night and Day, The Years, Three Guineas, Mrs Dalloway, as well as her early journalism.

In Marjorie Strachey's The Counterfeits: A Fictional Version of Bloomsbury, Hilary Newman analyses this novel. The article begins with facts about Marjorie Strachey, the youngest daughter of Lytton Strachey and places her in the context of her relation to the Bloomsbury group. Her version of the group was "fairly negative" (p. 28). The novel The Counterfeits "is based upon her own life, and its subject is her relationship with a figure outside Bloomsbury, whose beliefs and behavior she elevated above those of the Blooms berries" (p. 28). He was a Liberal Member if Parliament for Newcastle-under-Lyme, Josiah Clement Wedgwood. We are told that "Woolf good-humoredly wrote that 'Marjorie's book twits us all, practically by name; and compares us with Jos and herself, much to her advantage'" (p. 28).

In his article The Duke of Cambridge, Stuart N. Clarke states that "Virginia Woolf refers to the statue of the nineteenth-century duke twice, both times in the context of militarism and patriarchy" (p. 38). The works where the duke is mentioned, and which are analyzed starting from mentioning the context and giving quotations, are Mrs Dalloway and A Room of One's Own. "In Mrs Dalloway (1925), after leaving Clarissa in the morning, Peter Walsh walks up Whitehall. Thinking about his past and his prospects for the future, 'he glare[s] at the statue of the Duke of Cambridge'" (p. 38). The statue is mentioned in Chapter 2 of a Room of One's Own, when "the narrator reflects on the patriarchs and their 'instinct for possession'" (p. 38).

In Notes and Queries, Stuart N. Clarke argues that "Oxbridge in A Room of One's Own is 'really' Cambridge and that Fernham is a conflation of Newnham and Girton Colleges" (p. 46).

In Mansfield and Woolf - A New Discovery, Lindsay Martin presents us an "unsigned parody of an early nineteenth-century epistolary novel, called Virginia's Journal', first published in Rhythm in January 1913, but not definitely attributed to Mansfield until Number found the typescript" (p. 50). It contains "an early criticism of Arnold Bennett ('Rennet' in the story), which Member claims shows that criticism of Bennett 'was common, or commonplace, by 1913, long before publication of Woolf's Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown." (p. 50).

Stephen Bark way presents in Virginia Wolf Today "relevant material that comments on Woolf's current standing and reputation" (p. 56).

In Bloomsbury Bibliomania, poems by G.H. Luce (Hogarth Press), Stephen Barkway presents us "a unique 'mongrel' of a book within the Hogarth Press catalogue" (p. 57).

The reviews section focuses on the following: The Bloomsbury Group Memoir Club, by S.P. Rosenbaum, Victorian Celebrity Culture and Tennyson's Circle, by Charlotte Boyce, Páraic Finnerty and Anne-Marie Millim, Elizabeth of the German Garden: A Literary Journey, by Jennifer Walker.

The Reports of Society Events include Reading Group Meeting, 14 December 2013: 'Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid' by Sarah M. Hall and Fifteenth Annual Virginia Woolf Birthday Lecture: 'To Pin Down the Moment with Date and Season', given by Hermione Lee on 25 January 2014 by Stephen Barkway.

The September issue begins with an editorial signed by Stuart N. Clarke which is about his reflections on the Leonard Woolf Society's annual meeting (May 24 2014). Stuart N. Clarke notices that "Some of us started with Virginia Woolf's novels and branched out to her life and social milieu, or perhaps to other modernist writers. Others started with Woolf's life, which led them to her novels" (p. 3).

Stephen Barkway presents us readers with two letters from Virginia Woolf to Sibilla Aleramo. Sibilla Aleramo was an Italian novelist who published an essay on Woolf's novel Orlando in 1931.

Giulia Negrello goes on to detail the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Sibilla Aleramo in her paper Sibilla Aleramo and the Myth of Virginia Woolf. The letters previously presented are an important discovery since Woolf is not among Aleramo's correspondents in the Aleramo Archive in Rome. Aleramo had a significant role in promoting Woolf's novels in Italy. Negrello's paper aims at presenting Aleramo to the readers of the Bulletin and her relationship to Woolf. Aleramo was especially interested in the novel Orlando since it "spoke to her own experience as a bisexual" (p. 10). She also could identify with Woolf as a role model, so much so that "she projected Woolf's death onto her own personal life" (p. 11): she found it "comparable to her own despair at being abandoned by her lover" (p. 12).

In his article, 'With Several Folds of Blackness on their Eyes': Awaking from the Metaphor of Sleep in To the Lighthouse, Tim Cook draws a comparison between what Christopher Clark describes as the motif of 'sleepwalkers' to refer to "the hapless politicians, diplomats and generals of the early twentieth century as they led their nations into what became an unavoidable conflict" (p. 16) and an entry from Woolf's diary where she refers to the same "metaphor of sleepwalking and war" (p. 16). The article focuses especially on the section titled Time Passes in To the Lighthouse. Julia Briggs claims that "the events" in this section "are figures as dreams" (Briggs 175).

Hilary Newman's article 'An Influence upon Novelists... Out of all Proportion to [his] own Popularity': Thomas Love Peacock and Virginia Woolffollows next. It presents the importance of Virginia Woolf's criticism on Peacock (1785-1866) as well as his appeal to some writers who were members of Bloomsbury. Newman believes that Peacock's novels have influenced Woolf's novel To the Lighthouse in terms of style and narrative devices.For instance, "Peacock's novels and To the Lighthouse [...] jettison an omniscient narrator" (p. 31).

Stuart N. Clarke presents, in his article Hampton Court in The Waves, how the Stephen children would reach this place in 1903 by public transport. He also presents his own trip to the same place in 2013. The article focuses on the significance of Hampton Court to Woolf's own life. For instance, in the 1920s it was linked to her relationship with Vita Sackville-West. Stuart N. Clarke, during his own trip, wishes to identify the inn mentioned in The Waves where the characters dine.

In Notes and Queries: The Years, Stuart N. Clarke focuses on the question "Why should we think that Kitty is travelling to Yorkshire?" from King's Cross when "Towards the end of the '1914' chapter [...] Kitty [...] is driven by her chauffeur late at night to the station" as "It is not confirmed in the text" (p. 39).

The article The Picture of Cologne Cathedral focuses on the issue of how in The Years there are references to events related to the cathedral before its inauguration.

The section titled Virginia Woolf Today lists events in 2014 related to Woolf and her work.

Michael Pearson's brief article, titled Bloomsbury Bibliomania: Virginia Browne-Wilkinson brings to our attention the name present in the title: "[...] Virginia Browne- Wilkinson first met him in 1959 [...] In Leonard's final years she helped him in many ways: typing letters, correcting the proofs of his final volume of autobiography, and staying at Monk's House to care for him" (p. 57-58).

This issue of the Bulletin ends with a section of reviews. The following books are under review: The Modernist Party, edited by Kate McLoughlin, Virginia Woolf and December 1910: Studies in Rhetoric and Context, edited by Makiko Minow-Pinkney, 'With You in the Hebrides': Virginia Woolf and Scotland, by Jane Goldman, Virginia Woolf, Authorship and Legacy: Unravelling 'Nurse Lughton's Curtain' by Kristin Czarnecki, Bella Woolf, Leonard Woolf and Ceylon by Hilary Newman, The Proper Writing of Lives: Biography and the Art of Virginia Woolf by Claudia Cremonesi, The Labors of Modernism: Domesticity, Servants, and Authorship in Modernist Fiction by Mary Wilson. The last article is a Report by Lindsay Martin on her experience with the Alliance of Literary Societies 2014 AGM and Conference.

To conclude, all three issues of the Bulletin show us how relevant Virginia Woolf and her work are today.