Virginia Woolf: life of the week

Summary

Summary of "History Extra Podcast - Episode: Virginia Woolf: Life of the Week"

Introduction In the March 4, 2025 episode of the History Extra podcast titled "Virginia Woolf: Life of the Week," host Ellie Cawthorn engages in an enlightening conversation with Francesca Wade, author of Square Haunting. The episode delves deep into the life and legacy of Virginia Woolf, exploring her contributions to literature, her role within the Bloomsbury Group, and the personal struggles that shaped her work.

Early Life and Family Background Virginia Woolf was born into an upper-middle-class British establishment in Kensington, London. Her father, Lesley Stephen, was the editor of The Dictionary of National Biography. Francesca Wade emphasizes the influence of Woolf's upbringing on her later work:

"Woolf was born into the middle of kind of 19th century, upper middle class British Establishment... Her father really did give her the run of his enormous library." (03:20)

Virginia and her sister Vanessa were not sent to school alongside their brothers, a fact that greatly frustrated Virginia and became a recurring theme in her advocacy for women's education and independence.

Move to Bloomsbury and the Bloomsbury Group Following the deaths of their parents during their teenage years, Virginia and her siblings relocated to Gordon Square in Bloomsbury. This move symbolized Woolf's escape from the restrictive Victorian norms toward a life of intellectual freedom and artistic expression. Wade describes this transition:

"This house move... was a kind of symbol of her escape from this stifling Victorian world into independence." (06:00)

In Bloomsbury, Virginia became a central figure in the Bloomsbury Group—a collective of writers, artists, and intellectuals that included her husband Leonard Woolf, Clive Bell, Lytton Strachey, John Maynard Keynes, and Duncan Grant. The group was known for its progressive views on art, politics, and society.

Marriage and Personal Relationships Virginia Woolf's marriage to Leonard Woolf in 1912 was a partnership built on mutual respect and intellectual camaraderie. Wade highlights Virginia's contemplative approach to marriage:

"She wrote Leonard this amazing letter where she pretty much tells him she doesn't feel physical attraction to him... We must both take the risk. We ask a great deal of life, don't we?" (10:01)

Despite societal expectations, Virginia maintained romantic relationships with women, notably Vita Sackville-West. These relationships deeply influenced her work, particularly the novel Orlando, which explores themes of gender fluidity and inheritance laws.

Literary Career and Innovations Virginia Woolf was a pivotal figure in the modernist literary movement. Her early novels, The Voyage Out and Night and Day, were more conventional, but it was Jacob's Room that marked her literary breakthrough. Wade explains Woolf's shift towards exploring the inner lives of her characters:

"From Jacob's Room onwards, Woolf's work aimed to kind of explore and examine the processes of her characters' inner lives." (15:55)

Woolf advocated for new literary forms that captured the complexity of human consciousness. Her essays, particularly Modern Fiction, argued against traditional plot structures in favor of portraying "moments of being."

Mental Health Struggles Throughout her life, Woolf battled mental health issues, including what is now believed to be bipolar disorder. These struggles profoundly impacted her personal life and creative output. Wade notes:

"Her diaries are absolutely full of parties and talks and conversation... but she also required a certain sort of solitude and concentration to do her work." (12:01)

Leonard Woolf played a crucial role in supporting her during periods of instability, facilitating a balanced lifestyle between the bustling city and the tranquility of the countryside.

Impact of World Wars Both World War I and World War II had significant effects on Woolf's life and writing. The trauma of the First World War influenced characters in Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, reflecting the disjointedness and psychological scars left by the conflict.

Legacy and Feminist Impact Virginia Woolf is celebrated as a feminist icon, with her works A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas standing as seminal feminist texts. Wade asserts:

"Her essays... are just two of the most brilliant kind of works of sort of feminist writing of the century." (27:03)

Woolf's exploration of women's roles, creative freedom, and societal constraints continue to resonate, making her a perennial subject of study and admiration.

Controversies and Criticisms Despite her acclaim, Woolf's legacy is not without criticism. Her diaries reveal tone-deaf remarks regarding race and class, showcasing the complexities and contradictions within her character. Wade reflects on Woolf's self-awareness:

"In her memoir, Sketch of the Past, she... reflects on her experience of childhood and the honesty that she and her friends... had tried to live with." (29:27)

These moments highlight the multifaceted nature of Woolf's legacy, acknowledging both her groundbreaking contributions and her personal shortcomings.

Death and Final Works In March 1941, deeply affected by the stresses of publishing and the ongoing war, Virginia Woolf tragically took her own life. Her final novel, Between the Acts, was published posthumously to critical success. Wade poignantly describes Woolf's final days:

"It's really sad to think of what more she might have gone on to write... those years were very fraught." (24:26)

Conclusion Virginia Woolf's life was a tapestry of artistic brilliance, personal turmoil, and relentless pursuit of intellectual freedom. Her contributions to literature and feminist thought continue to inspire and provoke dialogue. Francesca Wade encapsulates Woolf's enduring legacy:

"It's really amazing to have that sort of closeness with someone who lived through this fascinating period of 20th-century history and was so engaged in the world, but also just such a brilliant thinker privately." (31:47)

For those new to Woolf's work, Wade recommends starting with A Room of One's Own and the novel Mrs. Dalloway, providing accessible entry points into her innovative literary world.

Notable Quotes

• Francesca Wade on Woolf's Significance:

  "Big question. There's just so many reasons. I think Woolf is just one of the most fascinating people and writers." (02:20)

• Woolf on Marriage:

  "If you can still go on as before, letting me find my own way, as that is what would please me best... Perhaps we shall get it then. How splendid." (10:40)

• Woolf's Reflection on Freedom:

  "All one's life is a struggle for freedom." (08:20)

• Wade on Woolf's Literary Innovation:

  "She loved the phrase moments of being... to show on the page how they're thinking, how they're being shaped by the forces around them." (15:38)

Recommendation for New Readers Francesca Wade advises newcomers to begin with:

• Non-Fiction: A Room of One's Own
• Fiction: Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse

These works offer a comprehensive introduction to Woolf's thematic concerns and stylistic innovations.

Closing Remarks The episode concludes with appreciation for Francesca Wade's insights and a nod to her upcoming biography of Gertrude Stein, emphasizing the ongoing relevance of Woolf's life and work in contemporary historical and literary discourse.

Listen Again To explore more captivating historical narratives and expert conversations, subscribe to the History Extra podcast and delve into episodes that illuminate the stories behind pivotal figures and events from the past.

Transcript

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[Podcast Host]

Hello and welcome to Life of the Week, where leading historians delve into the lives of some of history's most intriguing and significant figures. From ancient Egyptian pharaohs and medieval warriors to daring 20th century spies.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

From Mrs. Dalloway to to the Lighthouse, the writing of Virginia Woolf shook up literary norms and challenged societal ideas about what it meant to be a woman in the early 20th century. For today's Life of the Week episode, Ellie Cawthorn spoke to Francesca Wade, the author of Square Haunting, which examines Woolf's time in Bloomsbury alongside four other influential women. Together they consider the impact of Woolf's work and chart the key moments of her life. From her late night soirees with the Bloomsbury Group and love affair with Vita Sackville west to her long struggles with mental health.

[Francesca Wade]

Before we get into Virginia Woolf's life and work in more depth, give us a flavour of what's to come. Why, in your opinion, as someone who's written about Woolf, is she such a significant figure both in history and in literature?

[Guest Speaker]

Big question. There's just so many reasons. I think Woolf is just one of the most fascinating people and writers. She's someone I'm always kind of thinking with.

And the depth and breadth of her work and her writing, which covers fiction.

And nonfiction, her diaries and her letters and her friendships and the way she lived. There's sort of always more to be inspired by and challenged by and quarrel with sometimes.

But it's above all, I think this.

Kind of beauty of her writing that makes me keep coming back to her.

[Francesca Wade]

I mean, yeah, there's a lot to sink our teeth into here with her life and her work and how they intersect. But let's start with her life. Tell us about her early life and her family background, because I think her family background and her family connections are quite important here, aren't they?

[Guest Speaker]

They're crucial. I think. Woolf was born into the middle of.

Kind of 19th century, upper middle class.

British Establishment in a way. She was born in Kensington and she lived at 22 Hyde Park Gate in West London.

Her father, Lesley Stephen, was editor of.

The Dictionary of National Biography, so very.

Much in char of the sort of canon of great men of history. And Woolf reflected on her childhood all.

Through her life and particularly focusing on.

The house that she lived in. She often wrote about the kind of.

Stifling atmosphere of 22 Hyde Park Gate.

The kind of oak furniture and the.

Mahogany curtains that, you know, seemed like.

They were sort of sapping up any.

Kind of life and energy from the people within.

She and her sister Vanessa were not.

Sent to school alongside their brothers, which.

Always rankled with Wolf.

And education and women's lack of education is a theme that comes throughout her life.

So she was largely self educated. She spent her days reading voraciously and.

Her father really did give her the.

Run of his enormous library. And she studied Greek.

She writes a brilliant essay later in.

Life called On Not Knowing Greek, where women's kind of exclusion from the establishments and from classical languages that her brothers were learning is used as a way.

Into thinking about women's subordinate status more widely.

So this was something that really characterised her childhood, I think, which in many ways was a very privileged upbringing, but.

Also for her was marked by the kind of stark difference with her brothers.

[Francesca Wade]

So she was an auto didact then? She was self taught?

[Guest Speaker]

Pretty much. I mean, she studied with several tutors and she did study for a time in the sort of ladies department of.

King's College London, quite briefly, but for.

The most part she was self taught. And her sister Vanessa, who later became an artist, Vanessa Bell. The two of them would work, Virginia.

More interested in writing and Vanessa more interested in painting.

But everything changed in their childhood after their mother died, when they were sort.

Of early teenagers, and slightly not too long after that, their father died.

And that is the sort of great moment when the four siblings, Virginia, Vanessa, Adrian and Toby, struck out on their own and left Kensington behind for the open pastures of Bloomsbury, which is a.

Really significant moment for Woolfish.

[Francesca Wade]

Well, lead us onto that moment. Tell us about the four siblings and how they found their feet once their parents were gone.

[Guest Speaker]

They immediately decided they were going to leave Hyde Park Gate. Vanessa supposedly looked at the maps of London and chose the area that was most likely to scandalise their parents friends, which was Bloomsbury, which now, of course, we think of Bloomsbury as very fancy neighbourhood, but at that point it was.

Seen as totally down and out and.

Not a respectable part of town.

West London was much more fashionable and Bloomsbury actually had these sort of enormous houses that no one particularly wanted to live in.

So they had started to be divided.

Up into flats and they were much cheaper. So the four siblings moved to Gordon Square, in the sort of heart of Bloomsbury.

And this house move, I think, throughout.

Woolf's life, was a kind of symbol of her escape from this stifling Victorian world into independence. And they decided, she wrote, everything was going to be different in Bloomsbury, which ranged from the way they decorated their house.

They decided they were going to have.

Clean white walls, modern art, instead of the old portraits of their ancestors that, you know, reminded them so much of history.

Instead, they were going to look to.

The future, they were going to fill.

It with colour, you know, none of.

This sort of sitting in the drawing room serving tea to elderly men, which.

Is what they had grown up doing, but they were going to invite people.

Over freely and structure their existence around conversation and free conversation. They were determined that no subject would.

Be off limits at Gordon Square.

[Francesca Wade]

I mean, today this doesn't sound very radical, but at the time it really was, and around especially Vanessa and Virginia, who at that point are the Stephen sisters. This group coalesces, let's say, called the Bloomsbury Group. Can you tell us about who was in that set, how they came together and why it was so significant?

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah, I think it sort of started.

With their brother Toby's friends from university. Toby had studied at Cambridge. She'd been part of the Apostles, which.

Is, you know, a sort of philosophical.

Discussion group centered around the philosopher GE Moore. So Toby really brought his friends back.

Home and it included people like Clive Bell, who went on to marry Vanessa, who became an art critic and art historian. Leonard Woolf became Virginia's husband, Lytton Strachey.

Who was a brilliant kind of critic.

And biographer, John Maynard Keynes, who became the economist Duncan Grant, a painter. These were the people who gathered. And Vanessa at that point had joined.

The Slade School of Art, so she brought friends from her art classes who were all, you know, working out how.

To express new things in paint. And that was it. They would gather, they would talk about art and politics and marriage and I.

Think what sort of brought them all together and what characterized their conversation was a curiosity about the world and a.

Determination to kind of revolt against the.

Morals of their grandfathers.

They didn't want convention, they wanted to.

Value intimacy and freedom. Woolf once wrote in her diary, all one's life is a struggle for freedom.

And I think that's what sort of started in these Thursday evenings, as they called them.

[Francesca Wade]

So we have this fascinating set of thinkers and artists and writers, but what's Woolf's role within that, and what were her key relationships within that as well?

[Guest Speaker]

Well, at this point, Woolf was really just starting to set out as a book reviewer.

She wrote her first pieces for the.

Times Literary Supplement, which at that point were anonymous book reviews. And to her delight, she was paid for her work. And I think that experience of professional life was really liberating for her. The idea of having a job and being paid for her thought was quite revolutionary.

She also sort of, in these early.

Years, was quite involved in suffrage campaigning.

So I think she was, you know.

Starting to connect her writing with the.

Burgeoning feminist movement from an early point. Her brother Toby died quite early into.

Their time in Bloomsbury, which was an.

Enormous tragedy for Woolf.

And quite soon after that, Vanessa left their shared home to marry Clive Bell.

And start a family.

And Virginia was always close with her brother Adrian. They carried on living together a little bit after that. But it was Leonard Woolf who she.

Married, having been proposed to by several.

Other members of the group, including Lytton.

Strachey, who really was gay.

And I think they were both quite relieved and horrified at what had happened. But he was, of course, a lifelong friend.

[Francesca Wade]

Tell us a bit about Leonard Woolf. They married in 1912, but what was it about him that induced Woolf to marriage? None of the other proposals had tempted her.

[Guest Speaker]

It's a fascinating letter from Virginia to Leonard.

He's proposed marriage to her, and she's weighed up what this might mean to.

Her, because marriage as the convention of.

Victorian sort of society had been something that Woolf had thought a lot about.

And a couple of her first novels and early short stories sort of explore the possibilities of marriage.

You know, whether there would be a possibility of sort of independence within it.

Or whether it's destined structurally to keep women oppressed, you know, remove their property, remove any autonomy. So getting married for her was, you know, not a straightforward decision. And she wrote Leonard this amazing letter where she pretty much tells him she doesn't feel physical attraction to him.

She likes him a lot. She says, I will not look on marriage as a profession.

But then she carries on.

If you can still go on as before, letting me find my own way, as that is what would please me best. Then we must both take the risk. We, both of us want a marriage that is a tremendous living thing, always alive, always hot, not dead and easy in parts, as most marriages are. We ask a great deal of life, don't we?

Perhaps we shall get it then.

How splendid.

[Francesca Wade]

It's a lovely letter. I mean, that gives a kind of sense of her personality there. But what was she like to spend time with, for those who surrounded her, what did they remark on her character being like?

[Guest Speaker]

She somehow has acquired this reputation as rather austere. And, I mean, she struggled through her life with mental health.

I think most recently people have considered that she may have been bipolar.

She suffered several sort of breakdowns through.

Her life, quite a few in the.

Early years of her marriage.

And in fact, Leonard really became her Protector. And in 1915 they left Central London and moved out to Richmond with the idea that, you know, Woolf knew, needed.

A bit less sort of social stimulation.

And needed to live a slightly quieter, calmer life, which was difficult for her because she was also incredibly sociable.

I mean, her diaries are absolutely full.

Of parties and talks and conversation and, you know, the intellectual stimulation of her social life.

She also absolutely loved London. London is a major kind of character.

Across her work, I think.

And she's always writing about the pleasures.

Of walking around London, people watching, talking to people and looking into shop windows, watching people go about their business. So she was hugely interested in people and events, but also, I think, required.

A certain sort of solitude and concentration.

To do her work.

[Francesca Wade]

Was her life affected much by the First World War?

[Guest Speaker]

Very much. The First World War was an enormous sort of rupture for Woolf and for the Bloomsbury Group. A lot of them were pacifists and were conscientious objectors.

Several of them, during the First World War, went out to work on a farm to avoid the draft.

And this is probably the moment at which Woolf really starts to think about.

The kind of masculinity of the military impulse which became another theme that ran through her work. And she writes most about in her brilliant strident essay, Three Guineas. She was starting to form a sort.

Of feminism that opposed war and militancy.

And I think on both the sort of political and a personal level, the.

First World War was very difficult.

It recurs through her writing. And Mrs. Dalloway, the character September Artemis.

Smith, is a shell shocked war veteran.

Who'S returned from war completely broken.

And in her book to the Lighthouse, there's a section called Time Passes, which.

Sort of marks the war in a.

Way without marking it.

It becomes this kind of gap is.

There and can't be ignored, but is.

Almost too hard to talk about.

[Francesca Wade]

I wonder if we could delve into her work in a bit more detail. Now, as you mentioned, we've started out really as a reviewer and a writer of literary criticism. What did she think the novel should be?

[Guest Speaker]

Well, I think one of the most fascinating things about Woolf and her writing, which sort of matches everything we've been.

Talking about with her life, is her idea that modern times needed new forms, new ways of writing to get closer.

To reality as it was felt.

In a way, her life was all about this move away from Victorian culture. I mean, she was so rooted in.

Victorian culture, but had also begun to find it inadequate to kind of contain.

The sort of vitality that she felt within herself. But, I mean, her first two novels, the Voyage out and Night and Day.

Are relatively conventional in form, although they.

Show Woolf kind of thinking through the.

Questions that would mark her throughout her life about personal identity, women's lives, the impossibility of sort of understanding others or knowing oneself.

But I think her real breakthrough novel was Jacob's Room.

And after that, her novels took a sort of. It's a kind of lyrical turn. I think it's very impressionistic. Plot faded out for her because she was such a brilliant literary critic. She wrote and has left us these amazing kind of works of theory where she explains what she was looking for in fiction.

And in her essay Modern Fiction, she.

Argues that the sort of conventional plot, heavy Victorian forms of fiction tend to.

Miss the essential truth of things, that.

Their efforts to create, you know, a.

Lifelike representation of people or events actually blocks out the impressions that the mind receives every day. She loved the phrase moments of being.

And I think that's how she saw life as composed of these moments, the.

Mind, you know, receiving impressions all the time which sort of shape themselves into events. But really it's what's important is not.

So much what's happening in the external.

World, but the kind of perceptions and.

Processes going on in someone's inner life.

And so I think from Jacob's Room.

Onwards, Woolf's work aimed to kind of explore and examine the processes of her characters inner lives, to sort of show.

On the page how they're thinking, how they're being shaped by the forces around.

Them, and sort of follow them on.

The inside rather than the outside.

[Francesca Wade]

It's a lovely phrase that moments of being. You referred that to Jacob's Room as her first hit. Did it make her famous, or was she just a respected figure in literary circles?

[Guest Speaker]

I think she was a respected figure in literary circles.

It's hard to say if at this point she was famous.

I think through her life, she found.

The process of publication very difficult. I mean, she was always sort of.

Torn between the public realm and the private life. That's the kind of a theme of her work, as well as her personal experience.

And she found the process of sort.

Of releasing a book to the public very sort of stressful and enervating.

And so, in fact, it was during the war that she and Leonard, out in Richmond, set up their own publishing.

House, the Hogarth Press, with the idea that they would publish Virginia's books together.

So that she would be somewhat shielded.

From the experience of having to negotiate.

With an external editor, you know, who.

Might not get or support what she was doing. And that, I think, was very important to her.

[Francesca Wade]

Well, I was going to ask, how significant was it at this point of history that she was a woman doing all of this? Did that matter? By this point?

[Guest Speaker]

It did.

I mean, she was somewhat in conversation with the kind of burgeoning modernist movement of literature. And so at roughly the same time, people like T.S.

Eliot was publishing the Waste Land. James Joyce, of course, was publishing Ulysses.

And some people say Mrs. Dalloway, as.

A sort of response to Ulysses. Proust's In Search of Lost Time was appearing in translation for the first time.

And I think Woolf was very aware.

That, you know, fiction by men is treated differently from fiction by women.

She has an amazing line in a.

Room of One's Own, which is her essay that really explores the subject of.

Women'S kind of literary tradition and their.

Invisibility from the history of literature, where.

She says something like, you know, if a book is about war, it's seen.

As literature, and, you know, if it's.

A book about people in a drawing room, it's not.

So she was very aware that she was writing against a prevailing culture. And I think that publishing her books.

Herself with Leonard really was essential to sort of insulate her from the worries about that.

[Francesca Wade]

What would you say, if we look at the whole span of her writing career, was her most significant work?

[Guest Speaker]

She thought that her best novel was to the Lighthouse, which she claimed she wrote while. Or sort of composed in her mind while walking.

Walking around Tavistock Square.

And it was somewhat sort of inspired by her childhood.

Her parents figure sort of obliquely, and.

The Lighthouse, that the characters in the.

Book are always hoping and never Quite able to get to is somewhat based.

On Godrevy Lighthouse in St Ives, where.

The Stephen family spent summers in her childhood.

So it was a very sort of meaningful novel for her personally.

And it.

I mean, it's hard to describe the plot of any of Woolf's novels, because that's not what's important. But the character, Mrs. Ramsay, who is somewhat.

Is based on Woolf's mother, I think, is one of her most brilliant creations.

There's Also, of course, Mrs. Dalloway is.

Probably one of my favourite of Woolf's.

Books, which is just set in London in One Day in June and starts.

With Clarissa Dalloway planning to go and buy flowers to host a party that evening. And in the course of her walking.

Across London, the whole of her life.

Kind of unfolds before her. And we meet, you know, people from.

Her past who, you know, she's forgotten.

About or hasn't thought about how they've shaped her life. And she crosses paths with this war.

Veteran, Septimus Smith, and the sort of.

Disjunct between their experiences is just conveyed so beautifully through this sort of insight into their interior lives.

[Francesca Wade]

Let's just jump back to Woolf's life for a moment. Now, she remained married to Leonard Woolf, but that wasn't the only relationship she had. She actually had several romantic relationships with women. Could you tell us about them?

[Guest Speaker]

Yes, I think the sort of main romantic relationship that's become this very sort of storied is her relationship with Vita.

Sackville west, who was married to Harold Nicholson, a diplomat. But Vita was quite a kind of.

Scandalous sort of writer. She was a gardener.

She had these beautiful houses at Sissinghurst.

And Knole, and she and Virginia, you know, had a very close friendship and relationship, and they wrote incredibly beautiful sort.

Of love letters to each other.

And I think there was a real.

Frisson and sort of passion between them.

Which sort of settled into a friendship.

Slightly tinged by literary rivalry. Vita was quite a different novelist from Virginia and actually somewhat more commercially successful. There's some quite funny kind of snipings in Woolf's diaries about how Vita's got.

A big deal in America and she felt her work was somewhat more serious than Vita's, but wasn't perhaps receiving quite the same readership.

But I think her experiences with Vita were immensely sort of important for Woolf's kind of sense of herself.

It sort of opened her out into new parts of her that perhaps Leonard couldn't provide for. And it sparked one of her best.

Novels, Orlando, which features this sort of hero, heroine who tumbles down the centuries, changing gender. And this is sort of inspired by.

Vita and the fact that she was unable to inherit her ancestral home because.

Of inheritance laws privileging men.

[Francesca Wade]

And did Leonard know about these relationships? Did he mind?

[Guest Speaker]

If so, it's hard to quite sort.

Of get into the depths of the Woolf marriage. And I think there's been lots of sort of speculation about, you know, how, you know, whether it was even consummated or how.

But I think it seems very clear that it was a very close partnership which was able to accommodate whatever Virginia.

Sort of wanted and needed.

And I think Leonard's support of her.

Work and indeed of Vita's importance to.

It seems to have been the case. And, I mean, Woolf died in 1941 and left a note to Leonard in which she reflects on their long marriage and says that no two people could have been happier than we have been, which I think is probably to be somewhat taken at face value.

[Francesca Wade]

You alluded earlier to the fact that Woolf struggled with her mental health throughout her life. Can you tell us a bit more about how that impacted her life, but also her work?

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah, it's slightly hard to know. You know, Leonard, I think, was keen to keep her, you know, away from too many excitements.

I think some of the symptoms of her mental illness included slightly kind of manic stimulation and excitement and headaches.

And, you know, it's hard to know whether taking her away from London was what she wanted. I think she struggled out in Richmond and was always kind of chafing to return to London.

After they moved back to London, they spent part of the year in Sussex.

Their house, Monk's House, in a little.

Village called Rodmill, in fact, you can still visit.

It became a kind of sanctuary. So they had a sort of compromise.

Where they spent part of the time being sociable in the city and part of the time out in the countryside.

Sort of soaking in fresh air and. And allowing Woolf the time to concentrate. And I think she wrote quite differently.

In the two places, but both of.

Them really shaped her work.

I think the kind of excitement of her life in London kind of floods into her work.

The kind of, you know, enormous number.

Of perceptions that her characters experience. They're sort of out on the streets.

But then in the countryside. The slower rumination and connection to nature, I think, produced a slightly different kind of mode, and the two of them combine really beautifully.

[Francesca Wade]

And can you tell us about her death in 1941 and the circumstances that led up to it?

[Guest Speaker]

Well, Woolf always struggled with the book's.

Publication and I think in 1941, her last novel, between the Acts, she'd just finished, and she was very sort of.

Worried about it coming out and in fact tried to stop it being published.

At the very last minute.

She'd attempted suicide a couple of times.

In her earlier life, and this is what happened in March 1941. She left these notes for Leonard and.

Her sister and went out into the river.

And it's really, really sad because she would sort of recover from these episodes.

And they'd happened before and she had.

You know, moved past them, but this one she didn't. And of course, between the actual, you know, was published and was very successful. And so it's just.

It's really sad to think of what.

More she might have gone on to write, because actually, the last years of her life, although they were marked by the Second World War, which brought back to her painful memories of the First World War. So they were very fraught years, but actually they were very fruitful ones for her.

She was working on a lot of projects towards the end of her life.

She wrote a biography of her old.

Friend Roger Fry, who had been an artist and curator.

In fact, when they were shortly after they'd moved to Bloomsbury, he curated the.

First Post Impressionist exhibition, which was hugely influential for Woolf and her sister Vanessa.

Bringing the work of people like Picasso and Suzanne and Matisse to London pretty much for the first time. And that was really instrumental in Woolf's.

Ideas about representation and how it might be possible to represent the sort of essence of a. Of a person or a thing without.

Just trying to replicate their likeness.

So thinking about Roger sort of sent.

Her back to her earlier life.

And she also started to work on.

A memoir called Sketch of the Past.

Which went right back to her childhood.

Home at 22 Hyde Park Gate.

And she sort of reflected on her.

Experience of childhood and on what her life had been like and the kind.

Of honesty that she and her friends.

In the Bloomsbury group had tried to live with. So I think it was, you know.

Those years were full of projects and.

Excitement, as well as the horror of war and the sort of anxiety about publication.

[Francesca Wade]

So if we look then at Woolf's legacy in the decades since her death, how should we remember her? A term that you've used a couple of times in this conversation is feminist, and that's a word that's often used about her. Did Woolf self describe as a feminist? Would she have called herself a feminist?

[Guest Speaker]

I think she would.

I mean, her essays, A Room of One's own. And Three Guineas, I think, are just two of the, you know, the most brilliant kind of works of sort of feminist writing of the century, really. She brings out so many ideas and.

In this, you know, very sort of delightful style, sort of meandering, but also.

Totally kind of punchy. And A Room of One's Own sort of starts off being about the literature and the conditions under which the imagination.

Can flourish or has flourished through history.

And it's personal and it's political and.

It'S about her own experience, but also.

About all of the women who did not write books because there was no.

Way of them doing so. It starts off with.

She imagines that Shakespeare had had a sister and who had exactly the same.

Amount of talent as him, but none.

Of the same opportunities and sort of contrasts their potential lives.

And it's just such a brilliant way.

To kind of encapsulate the double standards and Three Guineas, which is more related.

To the war and the connections between war and fascism and government and domination kind of more generally. She draws together public and private in a really fascinating way. She writes, as a woman, I have.

No connection country, kind of bringing together.

The way women have always been outsiders in society, excluded from education, expected to.

Lead lives in the home, and connects that to ravages of war and asks.

You know, what does patriotism mean to women whose experience of freedom is so.

Different and whose history is not the same as men's.

[Francesca Wade]

I guess if we're reflecting on her legacy, I should ask, are there any less admirable sides to Woolf that we should be aware of?

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah, I mean, there are definitely moments.

In her writing, particularly in her diaries.

And her sort of private writing, that seem. That are incredibly tone deaf, particularly in terms of race and class.

And I think one interesting thing about.

That is how sort of self aware and self reflective she was that she sometimes would make pretty horrendous comments, but.

She would sometimes kind of check herself.

And think about where they've come from. She wrote a quite brilliant essay called Am I a Snob? Which answering, you know, the sort of.

Charges that had been levelled at Bloomsbury.

Of, you know, basically being sort of elite and out of touch and hypocritical, you know, to talk about having the importance of a room of one's own. But, you know, if that room is cleaned by servants, then, you know, was her own freedom contingent on another's, you know, lack of freedom?

And so I think with Woolf, you.

Know, those things have to sort of sit next to each other in a way that, yeah, there are uncomfortable aspects to her life and her legacy. But there are also moments, interestingly, particularly in her memoir, Sketch of the Past, I think, and in a few of.

Her essays, where she does sort of.

Question herself and kind of look forward.

To a future and sort of was.

Kind of aware and sort of horrified.

At this idea, but also was aware.

That she and her friends were sort of of a particular moment in time and that, you know, future generations might well move past or, you know, come.

To see them as less radical than.

They had thought they were.

And she just sort of wanted people to.

Wanted, you know, her, her friends, children, for example, to realize that, you know, at the time what they were doing did feel incredibly radical.

[Francesca Wade]

It's interesting that she had an eye for what people in the future would think of her work. Why do you think that people today, some hundred years on, are still turning to Woolf's work?

[Guest Speaker]

I think there are just so many different reasons to turn to Woolf. I mean, I think just for the absolute beauty of her prose, the sort.

Of immersive experience of reading one of Woolf's novels and the depth with which you can enter one of her character's mind and the.

It's kind of a thrilling experience to.

Kind of follow her sentences, to perhaps.

Realize you've shifted perception or to realize that something else has sort of come to play on the character and to see the characters thinking and struggling and questioning themselves and being open to the experience of whatever's happening around them. It's really powerful writing. And I think that her nonfiction writing, both her, you know, her longer books and her essays really hold up. They're really powerful works. And also her diaries, I think we haven't mentioned, but are absolutely brilliant. She wrote diaries through her life most days. And I think that her diaries were.

Really a testing ground where she worked.

Out ideas and she reflected on her own days and her friends and also what she was doing in fiction, very frankly.

And she did have an idea that her diaries would be read in the future.

So they're somewhat self conscious as well as very frank.

And, you know, it's just amazing to.

Have that sort of closeness with someone who lived through this fascinating period of.

20Th century history and was so engaged in the world, but also just such.

A brilliant thinker privately.

[Francesca Wade]

And finally, Francesca, for anyone who's listened and thought, you know what, this sounds right up my street. I'd like to give Woolf a go, but has never read any of her work before. Where would you recommend beginning?

[Guest Speaker]

I think I would recommend a room of one's own to anyone at all.

And for her fiction, I'd perhaps recommend Mrs. Dalloway as just a brilliant entry point, but I'd really recommend any of her books. I mean, it's fascinating even to start.

At the beginning and work through if you're committed, because of the way that her style changed from book to book is really fascinating to watch unfold. But I think Mrs. Dalloway and to the Lighthouse are probably the books that I'd recommend starting with.

[Podcast Host]

That was Francesca.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

Wade speaking to Ellie Cawthorn.

[Podcast Host]

Woolf is one of the subjects of.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

Francesca's book Square 5 Writers in London between the Wars. Most recently, she's written a biography of Gertrude Stein, which will be published on.

[Podcast Host]

The 22nd 2nd of May. Thanks for listening to today's Life of the Week. Be sure to join us again next time to learn about another fascinating figure from the past.