As war brewed in Europe, the British novelist responded to a letter urging “daughters of educated men” to join in opposition to the conflict. Her surprising retort called for fair wages for women—not just to advance equality, but to hasten the fighting’s end.
Virginia Woolf was forty years old when she addressed this letter to Gerald Brenan, who was twelve years her junior and was to write several books. She wrote it in the year of the appearance of Jacob’s Room, three years before Mrs. Dalloway. This is drawn from The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Volume II, edited by Nigel Nicolson and Joanne Trautmann, to appear in November.
The daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen, VIRGINIA WOOLFwas one of four children. Her father was delightful host, and of his intimate friends, the children came to know James Russell Lowell, Dr. Holmes, Hardy, Meredith. Stevensan, Ruskin, and John, Morley. No formal schooling was imposed an the young Virginia; she was allowed the unrestricted freedom of her father’s magnificent library. This essay and the prose portrait of her father which the Atlantic published in March will appear in a volume entitled The Captain’s Death Bed and Other Essays (Harcourt, Brace).
The daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen, VIRGINIA WOOLF was one of four children. The family divided its time between the London house in Hyde Park Gate and their summer home on the coast of Cornwall near St. Ives. Her father was a delightful host, and of his intimate friends, the children came to know James Russell Lowell, Dr. Holmes, Hardy, Meredith, Stevenson, Ruskin, and John Morley. No formal schooling was imposed upon the young Virginia; she was allowed the unrestricted freedom of her father’s magnificent library. This portrait will appear in a volume entitled The Captain’s Death Bed and Other Essays (Harcourt, Brace).