We have just received a nice collection of Virginia Woolf's novels, essays, and biographies. Look for them in a box in the classics section.
Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work, by Louise De Salvo (HC, 1989, $3)
The men of Woolf's family consistently abused the women in their family, either sexually or with violence. Woolf started to write about the abuse as a way to deal with the pain. At the time she was the only one writing of such dark truths, and the only one to turn her pain into art. She has left us quite a legacy.
A Writer's Diary, by Virginia Woolf, edited by Leonard Woolf (TPB, 1954, $2.50, yellow pages)
Ten years after she died, her husband published her diary, leaving out the parts where she wrote about her darker feelings.
Mrs. Woolf and the Servants:An Intimate History of Domestic Life in Bloomsbury, by Alison Light ( TPB, 2008, $2.50)
The Woolfs were considered to live a progressive way of life. She was a feminist, and believed women should be independent in all ways, yet her household included seven live-in servants, and she probably never even knew their last names. Light tries to discover the lives of these invisible people, on which even Woolf, the feminist, was dependent on.
**SOLD**
Virginia: A Play, by Edna O'Brien (small HC, 1981,$2)
Freshwater: A Comedy, by Virgina Woolf (HC, 1976, $5, which is 1/3 the internet price)
Woolf wrote this play, not to be published, but to be performed at a Bloomsbury's theatrical evening. Freshwater, Woolf's only play, was discovered only after her husband died in 1969. It's plot includes the arrival of two coffins, and Queen Victoria, to an artist colony on the Isle of Wight. Enjoy!
A Marriage of True Minds: An Intimate Portrait of Leonard and Virginia Woolf, by George Spater (HC, 1977, $3.50)
Leonard Woolf would begin to court Virginia in 1911. They would marry in 1912, and be together till her suicide in 1941. "There was no one else who had the intelligence that could be respected by Virginia and the strength and forbearance to support and protect her for the 28 years they lived together", writes Spater. Were they happy? After reading Minds you may have at least a partial answer. (Since Spater was the one to sort and catalogue Leonard Woolf's diaries, much in this book is new.) Included are 150 illustrations.
