Vanessa Virginia

This novel of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell “captures the sisters’ seesaw dynamic as they vacillate between protecting and hurting each other” (The Christian Science Monitor). You see, even after all these years, I wonder if you really loved me. Vanessa and Virginia are sisters, best friends, bitter rivals, and artistic collaborators. As children, they fight for the attention of their overextended mother, their brilliant but difficult father, and their adored brother, Thoby. As young women, they support each other through a series of devastating deaths, then emerge in bohemian Bloomsbury, bent on creating new lives and groundbreaking works of art. Through everything—marriage, lovers, loss, madness, children, success and failure—the sisters remain the closest of co-conspirators. But they also betray each other. In this lyrical, impressionistic account, written as a love letter and an elegy from Vanessa to Virginia, Susan Sellers imagines her way into the heart of the lifelong relationship between writer Virginia Woolf and painter Vanessa Bell. With sensitivity and fidelity to what is known of both lives, Sellers has created a powerful portrait of sibling rivalry, and “beautifully imagines what it must have meant to be a gifted artist yoked to a sister of dangerous, provocative genius” (Cleveland Plain Dealer). “A delectable little book for anyone who ever admired the Bloomsbury group. . . . A genuine treat.” —Publishers Weekly

This is the story of a deep and close relationship between two sisters - Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. The influence they exerted over each others lives, their competitiveness, the fierce love they had for each other and also their intense rivalry is explored here with subtlety and compassion. The thoughts, motives and actions of these two remarkably artistic women who jointly created the Bloomsbury Group is revealed with all its intricacies in this moving biography.

This book explores Virginia Woolf’s afterlives in contemporary biographical novels and drama. It offers an extensive analysis of a wide array of literary productions in which Virginia Woolf appears as a fictional character or a dramatis persona. It examines how Woolf’s physical and psychological features, as well as the values she stood for, are magnified, reinforced or distorted to serve the authors’ specific agendas. Beyond general theoretical issues about this flourishing genre, this study raises specific questions about the literary and cultural relevance of Woolf’s fictional representations. These contemporary narratives inform us about Woolf’s iconicity, but they also mirror our current literary, cultural and political concerns. Based on a close examination of twenty-five works published between 1972 and 2019, the book surveys various portraits of Woolf as a feminist, pacifist, troubled genius, gifted innovative writer, treacherous, competitive sister and tragic, suicidal character, or, on the contrary, as a caricatural comic spirit, inspirational figure and perspicacious amateur sleuth. By resurrecting Virginia Woolf in contemporary biofiction, whether to enhance or debunk stereotypes about the historical figure, the authors studied here contribute to her continuous reinvention. Their diverse fictional portraits constitute a way to reinforce Woolf’s literary status, re-evaluate her work, rejuvenate critical interpretations and augment her cultural capital in the twenty-first century

"Every secret of a writer's soul, experience of his life, and quality of his mind is written large in his work." -- Virginia Woolf Panken enables us to read this secret language without doing violence to the artistic integrity of the writing. Virginia Woolf's continuing need for maternal protection, her physical symptoms, depressive bent, anorexia, and suicidal leanings suggest her vulnerability, inner struggle, and masked rage. This book delves into the substrate of Virginia Woolf's emotional dilemmas as well as the subtexts of her novels and shows the confluence between her life and art. It brings new insights into Woolf's struggle to come to grips with her confused personal and sexual identity, into her artistic conscience, and into the conditions and motivations of her suicide.

As the nephew of Virginia Woolf, Quentin Bell enjoyed an initimacy with his subject granted to few biographers. Originally published in two volumes in 1972, his acclaimed biography describes Virginia Woolf's family and childhood; her earliest writings; the formation of the Bloomsbury Group; her marriage to Leonard Woolf; the mental breakdown of the years 1912-15; the origins and growth of the Hogarth Press; her friendships with T. S. Eliot, Katherine Mansfield and Vita Sackvill-West; her struggles to write The Waves and The Years; and the political and personal distresses of her last decade. Compelling, moving and entertaining, Quentin Bell's biography was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize. It is a fitting tribute to a remarkable and complex woman, one of the greatest writers of the century.

It can break your heart to have a sister like Virginia Woolf. London, 1905: The city is alight with change, and the Stephen siblings are at the forefront. Vanessa, Virginia, Thoby, and Adrian are leaving behind their childhood home and taking a house in the leafy heart of avant-garde Bloomsbury. There they bring together a glittering circle of bright, outrageous artistic friends who will grow into legend and come to be known as the Bloomsbury Group. And at the center of this charmed circle are the devoted, gifted sisters: Vanessa, the painter, and Virginia, the writer. Each member of the group will go on to earn fame and success eventually, but so far Vanessa Bell has never sold a painting. Virginia Woolf's book review has just been turned down by The Times. Lytton Strachey has not published anything. E. M. Forster has finished his first novel but does not like the title. Leonard Woolf is still a civil servant in Ceylon, and John Maynard Keynes is looking for a job. Together, this sparkling coterie of artists and intellectuals throw away convention and embrace the wild freedom of being young, single bohemians in London. But the landscape shifts when Vanessa unexpectedly falls in love and her sister feels dangerously abandoned. Eerily possessive, charismatic, manipulative, and brilliant, Virginia has always lived in the shelter of Vanessa's constant attention and encouragement. Without it, she careens toward self-destruction and madness. As tragedy and betrayal threaten to destroy the family, Vanessa must decide if it is finally time to protect her own happiness above all else. The work of exciting young newcomer Priya Parmar, Vanessa and Her Sister exquisitely captures the champagne-heady days of prewar London and the extraordinary lives of sisters Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf.

"I ought to be grateful to Richmond & Hogarth, and indeed, whether it's my invincible optimism or not, I am grateful." - Virginia Woolf Although more commonly associated with Bloomsbury, Virginia and her husband Leonard Woolf lived in Richmond-upon-Thames for ten years from the time of the First World War (1914-1924). Refuting the common misconception that she disliked the town, this book explores her daily habits as well as her intimate thoughts while living at the pretty house she came to love - Hogarth House. Drawing on information from her many letters and diaries, the author reveals how Richmond's relaxed way of life came to influence the writer, from her experimentation as a novelist to her work with her husband and the Hogarth Press, from her relationships with her servants to her many famous visitors. Reviews “Lively, diverse and readable, this book captures beautifully Virginia Woolf’s time in leafy Richmond, her mixed emotions over this exile from central London, and its influence on her life and work. This illuminating book is a valuable addition to literary history, and a must-read for every Virginia Woolf enthusiast...” - Emma Woolf, writer, journalist, presenter and Virginia Woolf’s great niece About the Author Peter Fullagar is a former English Language teacher, having lived and worked in diverse locations such as Tokyo and Moscow. He became fascinated by the works of Virginia Woolf while writing his dissertation for his Masters in English Literature and Language. During his teaching career he was head of department at a private college in West London. He has written articles and book reviews for the magazine English Teaching Professional and The Huffington Post. His first short story will be published in an anthology entitled Tempest in March 2019. Peter was recently interviewed for the forthcoming film about the project to fund, create and install a new full-sized bronze statue of Virginia Woolf in Richmond-upon-Thames.

Julia Briggs has written a chronological exploration of Woolf's life that reads her life through her books, using the novels to create a new form of biography. Each chapter is illustrated with a sample of Woolf's original manuscript.