Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee (English) Paperback Book

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Hermione Lee sees Virginia Woolf afresh, in her historical setting and as a vital figure for our times. It is a writer's life, illustrating how the concerns of her work arise and develop, and a political life, which establishes Woolf as a radically sceptical, subversive, courageous feminist.

FORMATPaperback LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Publisher Description

'It's what many people have been waiting for, a balanced and sensible study... This is a very good biography' Doris Lessing, Sunday TimesHermione Lee sees Virginia Woolf afresh, in her historical setting and as a vital figure for our times. Her book moves freely between a richly detailed life-story and new attempts to understand crucial questions - the impact of her childhood, the cause and nature of her madness and suicide, the truth about her marriage, her feelings for women, her prejudies and obsessions. This is a vivid, close-up portrait, returning to primary sources, and showing Woolf as occupying a distinct, even uneasy position with 'Bloomsbury'. It is a writer's life, illustrating how the concerns of her work arise and develop, and a political life, which establishes Woolf as a radically sceptical, subversive, courageous feminist. Incorporating newly discovered sources and illustrated with photos and drawings never used before, this biography is a revelation -informed, intelligent and moving.

Notes

Paperback edition of acclaimed biography of Virginia Woolf. Alongside the details of Woolf's life-story, Lee explores the crucial questions of her childhood, sanity, suicide, marriage, prejudices and feelings for women. "This biography should be admired for it scrupulousness, its seriousness, its effort and its honesty" Jeanette Winterson, The Times.

Author Biography

Hermione Lee is a biographer, critic, and teacher of literature. Her previous books include the internationally acclaimed biography, Virginia Woolf ('One of the most impressive biographies of the decade: moving, eloquent, powerful', Financial Times) and Edith Wharton ('A feat of exhaustive research... a glorious biography', Independent on Sunday), as well as books on Elizabeth Bowen, Willa Cather and Philip Roth. Her collection of essays on life-writing, Body Parts, was published in 2005, and her Biography: A Very Short Introduction in 2009. In 2013 she was made a Dame for services to literary scholarship. She lives in Oxford and Yorkshire.

Review

An outstanding achievement...superb -- Selena Hastings * Sunday Telegraph *It is a lasting, and even a great, book. These are not terms one gets to use often, or should ever use lightly -- Michael Cunningham, author of The HoursLee's book is not only very good, but very necessary -- Penelope FitzgeraldOne of the most impressive biographies of the decade: moving, eloquent, powerful * Financial Times *

Promotional

'It's what many people have been waiting for, a balanced and sensible study... This is a very good biography' Doris Lessing, Sunday Times

Kirkus UK Review

Virginia Woolf derided most biography as 'poppycock'. When she began her own 'sketch of the past' in the last two years of her life, she insisted that there must be a relation between the obscure areas of personality, the soul, and forces like class and social pressures, otherwise 'how futile life-writing becomes'. Lee has that great gift for a biographer - her own style and firmly authorial voice, without irritating conjecture. So you, the reader, know where she wants to lead you because she is unquestionably in command of her subject, but you also know that she is not going to fool you with surmises. She manages, through intelligent marshalling of meticulously researched material, to present an intensive view of an introspective woman who was also a distinct representative of a social class and the Bloomsbury group. Lee does not begin with any of the typical premises about Woolf. Woolf is not an 'incest survivor', a 'sexually abused child', a 'snob' or, simply, 'insane'. Critically, Lee does not take the view that Woolf is a victim, determined from the outset to kill herself. This fact-based approach means that we are free to enjoy a rich characterization of Virginia Woolf at every stage of her life. Lee writes elegantly, believably and with much new material taken from letters and papers not seen before. This is an intimate picture of Virginia Woolf - Ms Woolf struggling with her work, at home with friends, with family, with pets, with her private griefs and public wit, with her wardrobe, her cigarettes and her muddled sexiness. There is also an unflinching, dissected, carefully reported examination of her periodic illness - her 'nerves' - and her resultant sensitivity that makes her final act of suicide - when she was sure that England would lose the war, and when she had been bombed out badly in London and had her peaceful world in the country turned upside down - if not acceptable, at least understandable. Above all, this is a political life which establishes Woolf as a radical sceptic, a subversive feminist and a fighter against fascism of the state and of the mind. It is also a feast of detail for Bloomsbury fans. But perhaps the most engaging aspect of the book is the amount of sheer fun and physical vanity Virginia Woolf is allowed to display by her Lee. (Kirkus UK)

Kirkus US Review

Following Woolf's own experience of her life rather than later interpretations of it, Lee (English/Univ. of York, England; Willa Cather: Double Lives, not reviewed) delivers a comprehensive, elegantly structured work on the High Victorian modernist. At almost 900 pages, Lee's life seems to be in competition not with the many previous Bloomsbury books, but with Woolf's multivolume diaries, the "great mass for my memoirs," as she called them. Woolf never actually got around to producing a finished autobiography. Yet she once wrote that "only autobiography is literature," and Lee takes this as her cue for Woolf's life story and creative development, from her first anonymous review in 1904 to the militantly feminist essay Three Guineas in 1938. Lee goes back to primary sources (e.g., Woolf's diaries, her incomplete Moments of Being, and her sketches for Bloomsbury's "Memoir Club") to resurrect a fully human personality. Intelligently incorporating into every page letters, diary entries, and other writings, she smartly bypasses previous reductionist versions of Virginia the victim, the snob, the suicide, or the madwoman. Maintaining a degree of objective skepticism, Lee views Woolf foremost as a creative force and a fascinating personality, "a sane woman who had an illness" (although manic-depression, often identified as her malady, is still difficult to diagnose posthumously). Lee also gives balanced due to those in Woolf's life who have been neglected in previous biographies, such as her eminent father, Leslie Stephen, her sister, Vanessa, and the septuagenarian suffragette Ethel Smyth. Leonard Woolf, in Lee's view, was more of a guardian than a husband and helpmeet. Out of the Bloomsbury biography glut, Lee's admirably sympathetic portrait is as close to the Boswellian ideal as one could hope for. (Kirkus Reviews)

Prizes

Winner of Rose Mary Crawshay Prize 1997

Review Text

An outstanding achievement...superb

Review Quote

An outstanding achievement...superb

Promotional "Headline"

'It's what many people have been waiting for, a balanced and sensible study... This is a very good biography' Doris Lessing, Sunday Times

Details ISBN0099732513 Author Hermione Lee Year 1997 ISBN-10 0099732513 ISBN-13 9780099732518 Format Paperback Publication Date 1997-10-02 Imprint Vintage Place of Publication London Country of Publication United Kingdom DEWEY 823.912 Illustrations illustrations facsimiles, geneal. table, portraits Media Book Language English Publisher Vintage Publishing UK Release Date 1997-10-02 AU Release Date 1997-10-02 NZ Release Date 1997-10-02 Translator Polly McLean Birth 1930 Affiliation Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, NSS College of Engineering, Palakkad, India Position UN Under-Secretary General and Rector Qualifications QC Alternative 9781407066240 Audience General Pages 944 We've got this

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