Woolf sightings: Does Edith of Downton Abbey dress like Virginia?

Does Edith of Downton Abbey fame dress like Virginia Woolf? Did Vanessa Bell really purchase a Picasso for £4? Is Woolf on stage in Massachusetts and in Canada? Scan the past week’s Woolf sightings below to find out. Reflections on collections at the library, The Star Democrat And wasn’t he always quoting Virginia Woolf at [...]

Read Full Post »

What brand of typewriter did Virginia Woolf use?

Last week, a patron of the New York Public Library posed a question: What brand of typewriter did Virginia Woolf use? The query was sent on to the VWoolf Listserv, and answers rocketed through cyberspace. The next day, this well-researched answer showed up on the ASK NYPL blog: “Virginia Woolf’s Typewriter.” In it, reference librarian Matthew [...]

Read Full Post »

Days 9 and 10 at the Berg: Wrapping up my research

My two-week stint doing research at the NYPL Berg Collection is over, and letters and rare books took up the last two days of my Short-Term Research Fellowship on the topic of the Bloomsbury pacifists. The letters were written by Vanessa Bell and Lytton Strachey to a variety of correspondents, including Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Duncan Grant and Nick [...]

Read Full Post »

Day 8 at the Berg: Weather and war at the Morgan

Those who know me know that I am fascinated by the idea of how weather affects human behavior and human history. Yesterday, while I was reading David Garnett’s 1941 book War in the Air: September 1939 to May 1941 at the Morgan Library & Museum, references to weather’s affects on the outcome of World War II [...]

Read Full Post »

Day 7 at the Berg: Rare books at the Morgan

Having worked my way through Vanessa Bell’s letters to Maynard Keynes yesterday, I spent today with two of the Morgan’s rare books on the topic of the Bloomsbury pacifists. The Morgan Library & Museum actually has five pertinent rare books on the topic in its catalogue, and originally I thought I would get through all of them [...]

Read Full Post »

Woolf haunts Glaciers

In a newsletter from Powell’s, the fabulous book emporium in Portland, I read about a first novel by one of their own former staffers, Alexis Smith. According to the publisher’s notes: “Glaciers unfolds internally, the action shaped by Isabel’s sense of history, memory, and place, recalling the work of writers such as Jean Rhys, Marguerite [...]

Read Full Post »

Day 6 at the Berg: Move to the Morgan

Last week, NYPL Berg Collection librarian Rebecca Filner gave me the hot tip that I could find unpublished letters written by Vanessa Bell to Maynard Keynes at the Morgan Library & Museum. Today I went there to read them. The routine at the Morgan is different than that at the Berg. At the Morgan, one is required [...]

Read Full Post »

Woolf sightings: Valentine’s Day, Charleston song and the Dreadnought Hoax

This week’s Woolf sightings use a Virginia Woolf quote to justify recommending a good dinner as an excellent Valentine’s Day tribute (# 7, 25), cite Woolf as the inspiration for the song “Piece by Piece” by Charleston (#41), and include multiple mentions of the new letter for sale that discusses the Dreadnought Hoax (#35-38). Read on for these and more. Emeli [...]

Read Full Post »

Day 5 at the Berg: Visit to an exhibition

My fifth day at the New York Public Library’s Berg Collection was yesterday. But since I skipped out early to go to the Athena Film Festival at Barnard College, I don’t have a lot to say about my research for the day. Instead, I’ll tell you about my visit to the library’s current free exhibit at its [...]

Read Full Post »

Day 4 at the Berg: Maternal concerns of Vanessa

Door to the Berg Collection After four hours of reading mostly unpublished letters from Vanessa Bell to her sister Virginia Woolf today, I felt sad. The letters — and there are 371 of them dating from 1910 to 1940 in the New York Public Library’s Berg Collection – are full of details about living arrangements, house guests, [...]

Read Full Post »