Virginia Woolf's Women - Hardcover

Curtis, Vanessa

3.68

69 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0709069464 ISBN 13: 9780709069461

Publisher: Robert Hale Ltd, 2002

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A work of original and detailed research this is the first biography to concentrate exclusively on Woolf's close and inspirational female friendships with the key women in her life. Vanessa Curtis looks both at the effect of these relationships on her emotional life and the inspiration that each woman provided for the female protagonists in her fiction. Women inspired and fascinated Woolf until the day she died, evoking not only her loyalty, love and wit, but also anger, envy and insecurity. The author begins by exposing the lesser-known details of Woolf's Victorian childhood, spent underneath the suffocating wings of the 'angels in the house' who instilled in her a lifelong battle between creativity and convention. The journey continues with a study of the other unique women in Woolf's life: her silent sister, Vanessa Bell; enigmatic artist Dora Carrington; complex writer Katherine Mansfield; aristocratic novelist Vita Sackville-West and riotous, militant composer Ethel Smyth. Virginia Woolf's Women takes the reader on an intimate journey through the most important female relationships of Woolf's life, drawing on much previously unpublished archive correspondence and photography, ultimately revealing an honest portrait of Virginia Woolf as writer, daughter, sister, lover and friend.

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Review:

Curtis leads the reader on a fascinating voyage of discovery. -- The Good Book Guide, February 13, 2003

[an] absorbing study. -- The Guardian, 16 November, 2002

From the Author:

I wrote 'Virginia Woolf's Women' because I could see that there was a lack of books concentrating specifically on the women in Woolf's life. The early period of Woolf's life, spent in the claustrophobic existence of Victorian patriarchal society, particularly interests me, and I wanted to convey something of the effect that her mother, sister and half-sister had on her entire life. The other women featured in the book are all hugely characterful, and all, in different ways, had a profound influence on Virginia Woolf. Although very different from one another, they were all loved by Woolf and, in their various ways, loved her back (albeit tolerantly, in some cases!). It was a particular challenge to find photographs and texts that have not been published widely before, and which I think illustrate the transformation of Virginia Stephen, nervous teenager, into the confident, humorous writer of genius that she grew into. I think that her friendships with the women!
I have researched, should be celebrated as an antidote to the age-old misconceptions of Woolf as a unsmiling depressive. She was capable of much laughter and enjoyment and women, in particular, were able to light the touchpaper, sit back - and enjoy the sparks.

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