Lifting the veil on a literary genius


by Helen Lloyd


A


COLLECTION of leters providing a unique insight into the life and work of one of the


20th century’s most celebrated writers has been acquired by the University of St Andrews.


Dozens of documents from the family and friends of Virginia Woolf form part of a highly valuable archive relating to one of the most influential figures in literary society of the early 1900s and a central figure in the influential Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals.


The archive of typed and handwriten leters includes two previously unseen photographs of the writer among the treasures collected by biographer Brownlee Kirkpatrick.


Kirkpatrick consulted and gained the confidence of Virginia’s husband Leonard Woolf who subsequently recommended her to the publisher Rupert Hart- Davis as the writer’s official bibliographer in 1951.


Woolf, who was born in 1882 is best known for her works ‘Mrs Dalloway’, published in 1925, and the 1927 book ‘To the Lighthouse’. The story of a family called the Ramsays and their visits to the Isle of Skye between 1910 and 1920 is considered to be among the 100- best English language novels of the 20th century.


Possibly the most important section of the St Andrew’s archive is contained in Leonard Woolf ’s letters and in his two previously unseen photographs of Virginia Woolf.


However, like many talented people, Woolf suffered from bouts of mental illness throughout her life. Following the destruction of her London home during the Blitz, she fell into a depression. Unable to work she filled the pockets of her overcoat with stones and drowned herself, aged 59, in the River Ouse near Lewes, Sussex in March 1941.


Possibly the most important section of the St Andrew’s archive is contained in Leonard Woolf’s leters and in his two previously unseen photographs of Virginia Woolf, which were given to Kirkpatrick as a possible frontispiece for her work.


Leonard Woolf’s leters are wide- ranging and revealing, full of reminiscences about his late wife and their collaborations, including the Hogarth Press, which the couple began during the early years of


February 2016 61


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100