Intro To Virginia Woolf: Life and Houses

Woolf posing for Vogue Magazine in 1926, wearing her mother's dress and her new "shingle" haircut.

Woolf's childhood London home, occupied by as many 10 adults and children, and numerous servants

Located on a cul-de-sac, only half a block from Kensington Gardens

Half-brother George Duckworth, Virginia, older brother Thoby, older sister Vanessa, half-brother Gerald Duckworth, Julia and Leslie Stephen, and younger brother Adrian.  Missing: Half-sister Stella Duckworth and Laura Makepeace Stephen

Julia Stephen and her daughter Stella Duckworth;  Virginia and her father Leslie Stephen, Julia Duckworth Stephen by Margaret Cameron, Leslie Stephens and a mountaineering guide.

Talland House in St Ives was the Stephen family home June-August from 1884 until Julia's death in 1897. It was the setting behind To the Lighthouse and many other references to coastal scenes.

Woolf's autobiographical "A Sketch of the Past" refers to her feeling of ecstasy lying in the nursery bed at Talland House and listening to the sound of the waves on the beach below.

In 1904 Vanessa moved the parent-less family to Bloomsbury, then as now surrounded by universities and bookstores, inhabited by writers and students.

Except for the years of exile in suburban Richmond, Woolf maintained a London house in Bloomsbury for most of her life moving from Gordon to Fitzroy to Bunswick, to Tavistock and Mecklenburgh Squares

Lytton Strachey by Vanessa Bell, Adrian Stephen, Leonard Woolf by Vanessa Bell, Maynard Kaynes by Gwen Raverat, E.M. Forster by Dora Carrington.

In 1910, Fry introduced modern French art -- Van Gogh, Cezanne, Matisse, Gauguin, among others -- to the British public.  It was a scandal!

After a major breakdown in 1915, Leonard convinced Virginia she needed to avoid the social stress of living in central London, so they moved to suburban Richmond.

Hogarth house was an easy mile from the extensive paths of Kew Gardens.

Hoping to divert Virginia with a relaxing hobby, they founded the Hogarth Press, which not only gave her the freedom to write as she wished but also became a major outlet for modernist texts.

While the Woolfs lived in London much of the time, Cornwall Woolf often revisited Cornwall, and  Virginia Began spending summers and holday weekends in Sussex as early as 1912.

Virginia's first "villa" in Sussex, located in the tiny village of Firle, was named "Little Talland House" as the Sussex landscape and proximity to the sea reminded her of Cornwall.

Next she andVanessa shared the lease on Asham House at the foor of Firle Beacon

Virginia found Charleston farmhouse on the other side of Firle, which proved perfect for Vanessa's large household

In 1919, when Asham became unavailable, the Woolfs found Monk's House in the downland village of Rodmell, in the water meadows near the river Ouse.

The Garden was a major attraction of Monk's House; it was expanded and developed over the years by the addition of land as well as greenhouses and beehives, various paths and benches. An extensive orchard of apple and plum trees provided annual income.

The interior walls were knocked down, the living room was painted a delicate sea green, and the house was gradually furnished with furniture designed by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.  The deep window sills were filled with geraniums and lilies.  When the Woolfs were in residence, books were stacked in piles everywhere, with ashtrays perched precariously on top.

Vanessa Bell designed the covers for almost all of Virginia's books published by the Hogarth Press.

Meanwhile almost every surface in Charleston was painted by Vanessa and Duncan, who became lifelong companions.  Vanessa's third child, Angelica, was fathered by Duncan, though she was not told of her paternity until she was 18.

Woolf had several different writing huts at Monk's House, including a tool shed replaced what is now the public bathroom.  This one was built in 1934 against the church wall on the east edge of the property.  Originally it was half the size; after Virginia's death, Leonard enlarged it as a lithography studio for Trekkie Parsons.

View across water meadows to Firle Beacon; Asham was below the white scar that marks the cement works.  Leonard with his "Dew Pond"

Southease Halt, where Virginia drowned herself in March of 1941.  The upper photo was taken her death date with the tidal river in full spate, looking towards Rodmell and Monk's house.

Visual Notes on A Room of One's Own

Looking out from Woolf's Writing Studio at Monk's House, Sussex

A few years after she wrote Room

Addition to Monk's House (1928); after financial success of Mrs Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927)

Early 30's

Vita with Virginia and with her two sons.  Radclyffe Hall, author of The Well of Loneliness, on trial for obscenity while Woolf was writing Room

Although Woolf call the campus "Oxbridge," specific visual details make clear that it is based on Cambridge; her brothers and their friends all went to King's or Trinity Colleges

Milton's draft of "Lycidas" is indeed held in the Wren Library

Newnham was one of the two Cambridge Colleges for women.  Located across the river from the other colleges on a side street, it is still easy to miss today.

Pernel Strachey, sister of Lytton, was Head of Newnham college from 1927 on, and in 1928 invited Woolf to deliver the first of several lectures which became A Room of One's Own

At a 2004 lecture by Dame Gillian Beer, in the same hall where Woolf spoke.  Anne Oliver Bell edited Woolf's diaries, and Frances Spaulding has written definitive biographies of all the Bloomsbury artists: Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Roger Frye

Maps of various Bloomsbury Sqs in which Woolf resided.  She lived longest at Tavistock Sq (1924-39), pictured above.  It was destroyed during the blitz.

The names of  (male) writers and thinkers appeared under the windows

A refurbished reading room left off the names

It has been suggested that Vanessa Bell's cover replicates a window of the reading room, with Woolf's name inserted in the pantheon, and the clock appropriately pictured at V-time.

Books and Manuscripts previously held at The British Museum are now housed at The British Library, including the notebook of Mrs Dalloway, childhood newspapers, and Woolf's suicide note