Virginia Woolf: And the Women Who Shaped Her World

by Gillian Gill, Nicola Barber (Read by)

Overview

An insightful, witty look at Virginia Woolf through the lens of the extraordinary women closest to her.

How did Adeline Virginia Stephen become the great writer Virginia Woolf? Acclaimed biographer Gillian Gill tells the stories of the women whose legacies—of strength, style, and creativity—shaped Woolf’s path to the radical writing that inspires so many today.

   Gill casts back to Woolf’s French-Anglo-Indian maternal great-grandmother Thérèse de L’Etang, an outsider to English culture whose beauty passed powerfully down the female line; and to Woolf’s aunt Anne Thackeray Ritchie, who gave Woolf her first vision of a successful female writer.  Yet it was the women in her own family circle who had the most complex and lasting effect on Woolf.  Her mother, Julia, and sisters Stella, Laura, and Vanessa were all, like Woolf herself, but in markedly different ways, warped by the male-dominated household they lived in.  Finally, Gill shifts the lens onto the famous Bloomsbury group.  This, Gill convinces, is where Woolf called upon the legacy of the women who shaped her to transform a group of men—united in their love for one another and their disregard for women—into a society in which Woolf ultimately found her freedom and her voice.  
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781094064192
Publisher:	Hmh Audio
Publication date:	12/03/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 6.70(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

GILLIAN GILL holds a Ph.D. in modern French literature from Cambridge University, and has taught at Northeastern, Wellesley, Yale, and Harvard. She is the New York Times best-selling author of We Too, Nightingales, Agatha Christie, and Mary Baker Eddy. She lives in suburban Boston.

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

Part I The Pattle Legacy

1 Virginia Woolf's Indian Ancestresses-Thérèse de l'Etang and Adeline Pattle 3

2 Pattledom 18

3 High Society 40

Part II Virginia Woolf and the Thackerays-A Legacy of Literature, Money, and Madness

4 Finders Keepers 55

5 William and Isabella 66

6 Army and Minny 80

7 Virginia Woolf's Mad, Bad Sister 104

Part III The Angels of Hyde Park Gate

8 Julia Prinsep Jackson Duckworth Stephen 127

9 Stella Duckworth Hills 161

10 A Close Conspiracy 188

Part IV Old Bloomsbury

11 From Cambridge to Bloomsbury 207

12 The Landmark Year 230

13 The Great Betrayal 245

Part V A Tale of Two Sisters

14 Vanessa's Way, Part 1 263

15 Virginias Way, Part 1 286

16 Vanessa's Way, Part 2 300

17 Virginia's Way, Part 2 330

Epilogue: The Bell Children and Their Aunt 348

Acknowledgments 353

Selected Bibliography 356

Notes 360

Photo Credits 398

Index 399

Editorial Reviews

…Gill's chatty, often conspiratorial tone helps mitigate some of the anguished hand-wringing that often accompanies discussions of Woolf's life. After all, she isn't only one of literature's most famous suicides; she also suffered extreme mental illness, horrible, and early, familial loss; her half brothers' incestuous advances; and deep sexual and literary frustration. Gill brings to this potentially grim picture an ear for the playful undercurrent—a sense of the world's splendid possibility—that also ran through Woolf's life, countering much of the darkness. While she does not downplay the writer's difficulties, Gill's portrait shows Woolf's character to have been complicated not just by difficulty but by pleasure, too.

The New York Times Book Review - Claire Jarvis

09/16/2019

In this often overly speculative book, Gill (We Too, Nightingales) places Virgina Woolf within the context of the women in her life and, particularly, in her family. Gill traces Woolf’s connection to imperial India—her mother, Julia Jackson Stephen, was born there—and to “Pattledom,” a legendary artistic and literary salon of the 1850s founded by her great-aunts, including pioneering photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. From there Gill moves to the deeply dysfunctional family environment in which Woolf grew up, and to the Bloomsbury set with which she became associated. Gill’s writing is lively, pinpointing the amusing, sometimes salacious, and ultimately damaging aspects of Woolf’s multiple worlds. She does climb out on some speculative limbs. Yes, as Gill speculates, the troubles of Woolf’s mentally challenged half-sister, Laura, might have been exacerbated by incestuous advances from their half-brother, George—with whom Woolf had her own sexual encounter—but, even as Gill notes, there is no evidence for this. Similarly, Gill suggests that the family preserved no images of Woolf’s great-great-grandmother, Thérèse Josephe Blin de Grincourt, because of her reportedly Bengali ancestry. Woolf fans will be entertained, but left feeling, uneasily, that this rollicking story perhaps contains an overflow of conjecture and opinion, and too few hard facts. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

Companionable and piquant, Gillian Gill’s bold reading of the lives of Virginia Woolf’s female exemplars yields a kaleidoscopic view of her subject, whirling across the centuries and enabling Woolf to be seen from new and unexpected angles.  The most refreshing take on Bloomsbury in many years.”—Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life.     "Gillian Gill has written a bold, incisive book—vividly conceived, impeccably researched, always questioning and ever original. By shedding light upon the gutsy, powerful women who shaped Virginia Woolf’s life and work, Gill makes a compelling argument about legacy, inheritance, and our female forebears’ enduring influence." —Katharine Smyth, author of All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf  “A delicious—and disturbing—account of a time when men made all the rules, and a few unusual and talented women in Virginia Woolf’s orbit found ways to subvert them.  Gillian Gill weaves this story of Virginia Woolf’s world in her own irresistible style—irreverent, unconstrained, and deeply informed. Gill has a voice all her own, uniquely suited to recreating the no-holds-barred climate of Bloomsbury.”—Susan Quinn, author of Eleanor and Hick:  The Love Affair That Shaped a First Lady   "An engaging, fully persuasive account of the women who stirred Virginia Woolf’s imagination. Gillian Gill’s broad-minded reading of Woolf’s relations with her womenfolk recontextualizes the legends of Bloomsbury."—Carolyn Burke, author of Foursome:  Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keefe, Paul Strand, Rebecca Salsbury "Gill’s writing is lively, pinpointing the amusing, sometimes salacious, and ultimately damaging aspects of Woolf’s multiple worlds...Woolf fans will be entertained."—Publishers Weekly "This volume will be welcomed by readers and students curious about the cultural aspects of Woolf’s development as a writer."—Library Journal —

From the Publisher

Feminist writer Virginia Woolf is now a household name, but she fought hard for that distinction. Narrator Nicola Barber explains the development of this creative rebel in a lush, feminine tone. Her vocal persona appropriately creates the aura of a well-to-do, well-educated, young woman. Barber takes us gently through Woolf’s privileged childhood in a blended family and then presents the various historical roadblocks to women's formal education. She narrates with feeling the contradictions and frustrations of Woolf's journey to becoming a writer. Fans of her work will sink into this listening experience as a gentle reintroduction to the writer's life. Barber makes the scattered details of the entire family engaging for the listener. M.R. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2020 - AudioFile

Feminist writer Virginia Woolf is now a household name, but she fought hard for that distinction. Narrator Nicola Barber explains the development of this creative rebel in a lush, feminine tone. Her vocal persona appropriately creates the aura of a well-to-do, well-educated, young woman. Barber takes us gently through Woolf’s privileged childhood in a blended family and then presents the various historical roadblocks to women's formal education. She narrates with feeling the contradictions and frustrations of Woolf's journey to becoming a writer. Fans of her work will sink into this listening experience as a gentle reintroduction to the writer's life. Barber makes the scattered details of the entire family engaging for the listener. M.R. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2020 - AudioFile