Virginia Woolf: Difference between revisions

In the 1939 essay "A Sketch of the Past" Woolf first wrote about experiencing sexual abuse by Gerald Duckworth at a young age. There is speculation that this contributed to her mental health issues later in life.{{sfn|Lee|1997a|pp=123-124}} There are also suggestions of sexual impropriety from George Duckworth during the period that he was caring for the Stephen sisters.{{sfn|Lee|1997a|pp=151-156}}▼

In November 1911 Virginia and Adrian moved to a larger house at 38 [[Brunswick Square]], and invited John Maynard Keynes, Duncan Grant and Leonard Woolf to become lodgers there.{{sfn|Lee|1997a|pp=267,300}}{{sfn|Bell|1972|p=180}} Virginia saw it as a new opportunity: "We are going to try all kinds of experiments", she told [[Ottoline Morrell]].{{sfn|Lee|1997a|p=288}} This arrangement for a single woman living among men was considered scandalous.{{sfn|Lee|1997a|p=288}}▼

{{main|Hogarth Press}}▼

[[File:Shakespeare Plays hand bound by Virginia Woolf.JPG|thumb|Shelf of [[Shakespeare]] plays hand-bound by Virginia Woolf in her bedroom at [[Monk's House]]{{efn|It has been suggested that Woolf bound books to help cope with her depression, as is hinted at in her writing: "A great part of every day is not lived consciously. One walks, eats, sees things, deals with what has to be done; the broken vacuum cleaner; ... cooking dinner; bookbinding."{{sfn|Sim|2016}}{{page needed|date=July 2024}}}}]]▼

Virginia had taken up book-binding as a pastime in October 1901, at the age of 19.{{sfn|Bell|1972|loc=Chronology |p=192}}{{sfn|Heyes|2016}} The Woolfs had been discussing setting up a publishing house for some time{{snd}}Leonard intended for it to give Virginia a rest from the strain of writing, and therefore help her fragile mental health. Additionally, publishing her works under their own outfit would save her from the stress of submitting her work to an external company, which contributed to her breakdown during the process of publishing her first novel ''The Voyage Out''.{{efn|Her second novel, ''[[Night and Day (Woolf novel)|Night and Day]]'' (1919), was also published by Duckworth's, but ''[[Jacob's Room]]'' (1922) was published by Hogarth.{{sfn|Heyes|2016}}}} The Woolfs obtained their own hand-printing press in April 1917 and set it up on their dining room table at Hogarth House, thus beginning the [[Hogarth Press]].{{sfn|Heyes|2016}}{{sfn|Zakaria|2017}}▼

The first publication was ''Two Stories'' in July 1917, consisting of "The Mark on the Wall" by Virginia Woolf (which has been described as "Woolf's first foray into modernism"{{sfn|McTaggart|2010|p=67}}) and "Three Jews" by Leonard Woolf. The accompanying illustrations by [[Dora Carrington]] were a success, leading Virginia to remark that the press was "specially good at printing pictures, and we see that we must make a practice of always having pictures." The process took two and a half months with a production run of 150 copies.{{sfn|British Library|2018c}} Other short short stories followed, including ''[[Kew Gardens (short story)|Kew Gardens]]'' (1919) with a [[woodblock printing|woodblock]] by Vanessa Bell as [[book frontispiece|frontispiece]].{{sfn|Todd|1999|p=13}} Subsequently Bell added further illustrations, adorning each page of the text.{{sfn|British Library|2018d}}▼

Unlike its contemporary small printers, who specialised in expensive artisanal reprints, the Woolfs concentrated on living avant-garde authors,{{sfn|McTaggart|2010|p=63}} and over the subsequent five years printed works by a number of authors including [[Katherine Mansfield]], [[T.S. Eliot]], [[E. M. Forster]], Clive Bell and Roger Fry. They also produced translations of Russian works with [[S. S. Koteliansky]], and the first translation of the complete works of [[Sigmund Freud]].{{sfn|McTaggart|2010|p=68}}{{sfn|Heyes|2016}} They acquired a larger press in 1921 and began to sell directly to booksellers.{{sfn|Heyes|2016}} In 1938 Virginia sold her share of the company to [[John Lehmann]],{{sfn|Bell|1972|p=250}} who had started working for Hogarth Press seven years previously.{{sfn|Lee|1997a|p=590}} The Press eventually became Leonard's only source of income, but his association with it ended in 1946, after publishing 527 titles, and Hogarth is now an imprint of [[Penguin Random House]].{{sfn|Zakaria|2017}}{{sfn|Heyes|2016}}▼

The Press also produced explicitly political works. Pamphlets had fallen out of fashion due to the high production costs and low revenue, but the Hogarth Press produced several series on contemporary issues of international politics, challenging colonialism and critiquing Soviet Russia and Italian fascism.{{sfn|McTaggart|2010|pp=72,74}} The Woolfs also published political fiction, including ''Turbott Wolfe'' (1926) by [[William Plomer]] and ''In a Province'' (1934) by [[Laurens van der Post]], which concern South African racial policies and revolutionary movements respectively.{{sfn|McTaggart|2010|p=75}} Virginia Woolf saw a link between international politics and feminism, publishing a biography of Indian feminist activist [[Saroj Nalini Dutt]] and the memoirs of [[suffragette]] [[Elizabeth Robins]].{{sfn|McTaggart|2010|p=71}} Scholar Ursula McTaggart argues that the Hogarth Press shaped and represented Woolf's later concept of an "Outsiders' Society", a non-organised group of women who would resist "the patriarchal fascism of war and nationalism" by exerting influence through private actions, as described in ''Three Guineas''. In this view, the readers and authors form a loose network, with the Press providing the means to exchange ideas.{{sfn|McTaggart|2010|pp=63,65,66,70}}▼