In our current environment, with U.S. newspapers screaming about our terrible economy, it is interesting to discover that Americans can still afford to be the high bidder on literary archives — at least if the Americans are located in Texas.

Read more in The Guardian about U.S. success in attracting the papers of men and women of letters.

Virginia Woolf’s papers are available at several sites. They include the New York Public Library’s Berg Collection, Smith College, Washington State University, Victoria University, the British Library, and the University of Sussex.

For many Woolfians, Orlando is one of our most-loved, rather than most-loathed, of Woolf’s novels. Despite what some modern day cranky critics say.

Some lovers of Orlando posted their responses to critics who recently panned the novel.

Meanwhile, a query posted on the VW Listserv elicited a number of scholarly references regarding Sally Potter’s film adaptation of the novel.

Among them were these from Gulshan Taneja of the University of Delhi’s English department and editor of In-between: Essays & Studies in Literary Criticism:

• Peter Naccarato, “Straightening Woolf’s Queer Text: Sally Potter’s Orlando.” In-between: Essays & Studies in Literary Criticism, 14.2 (September 2005): 107-20. Taneja says this was a special issue devoted to Orlando.
• Alison Graham-Bertolini, in an appendix to her article, “The ‘Becoming’ of Orlando: The Deleuzian Perspective,” includes a discussion of the Potter film. It can be found in In-between: Essays & Studies in Literary Criticism 14.2 (September 2005): 153-165.
• Potter’s “Notes on the Adaptation of the Book Orlando” from Professor Rose Norman’s Web site.

Here are a few more Orlando resources, scholarly or not, that you can find online:

• Orlando the Film: Bibliography posted by Dr. Norman.
• “Reading Readers in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography” by Kathryn N. Benzel. Get it here.
• “Gypsies and Lesbian Desire: Vita Sackville-West, Violet Trefusis, and Virginia Woolf” by Kirstie Blair. Click here.
• “Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: The Book as Critic” by Kelly Tetterton. Go here.
• “An off-beat adaptation: Orlando” by Timotheos Roussos. Find it here.
• A common reader’s self-described online “shrine” to the Potter film.
• The movie trailer.

Other resources on Orlando can be found here and here.

As lovers of Virginia Woolf’s words and works, we often have a favorite novel that we read and reread. Some of us have several. But a Woolf novel that we loathe? Unimaginable. At least for me.

In the June 22 issue of The Sunday Times, however, critics and writers have named their most-loathed novels. And two of them are Woolf’s.

Here are their conflicting comments about Woolf’s work in the article “Critics Choose Their Most-Loathed Books“:

• From Stephen Amidon, novelist, fiction reviewer, and former journalist:
  “The Waves by Virginia Woolf is everything a novel should not be – and so much less. After the triumphs of Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, and the fascinating experimentation of Orlando, Woolf decided to change tack with this “playpoem” and wound up sinking into a putrid morass of unreadability. Beloved of American academics – which ought to tell you something right there – the book fairly accurately simulates the experience of sitting next to a pretentious old windbag on a flight to Australia. “

• From John Carey, The Sunday Times chief books critic:
  “My redmist book is Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, the acme of Bloomsburyish poppycock, a self-flattering appropriation of English literature and history, distilled from Woolf’s temporarily addled brain by the heat of her infatuation for the aristocratic Vita Sackville-West. Should be sold with a sick bag attached.

These writers would benefit from reading another article just posted to the VW Listserv, “Reviews Resonate as PR, Summary Can’t.” Written by Todd Shy, it was published in the June 22 News Observer. 

In it, Shy cites Woolf’s essay, “Hours in a Library,” as a model for book review writing. In her 1916 essay, Woolf describes the difficult process of writing a good review, one that sees the book, as well as what the book is seeing.

Lists such as the one printed in the June 22 Sunday Times aren’t designed to do either. Instead they seem to be the literary version of the Jerry Springer show. 

Anyone who has visited Monk’s House in Rodmell, Sussex knows that much of Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s summer home is off limits to visitors.

When I was there in June of 2004, I was particularly interested in Virginia’s writing lodge. However, I couldn’t get close enough to truly satisfy my curiosity about the small room where she wrote many of her most famous works from 1919 to 1941. All I could do was peer through the window into the space, as it was off limits to everyday visitors like me.

So imagine my excitement when a post to the VW Listserv linked us to an excellent interior photo of the writing lodge and a description of the space written by Woolf biographer Hermione Lee. The article, “Writers’ Rooms: Virginia Woolf,” appears in The Guardian with the wonderful photo.

You can read more about Woolf’s writing habitats — and the queries they generate — here.

This just in from the VW Listserv: A restaurant in Cincinnati, the Vineyard Cafe, packages diners’ leftovers in a handy little box with a Virginia Woolf quote on the front.

Drew is now an assistant professor of English in the Humanities Department of the College of Mount St. Joseph, where he is working on expanding his dissertation, The Deep Old Desk: The Diary of Virginia Woolf, into a book. Check out his bio on this page.

Virginia Woolf, common readers, and Julia Briggs.

That is the combination created by the Julia Briggs Memorial Prize 2009, which will be awarded to the top essay on the topic of “Virginia Woolf and the Common Reader” in a competition sponsored by the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain.

The competition is being held in memory of noted Woolf scholar Julia Briggs, who died in August. Ms. Briggs, author of Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life and Reading Virginia Woolf, also served as an executive council member for Great Britain’s Woolf society.

Who can enter

The competition is open to members and non-members of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain, with the exception of  members of the executive council and editorial committee of the society, contest judges, and families of all three groups.

How to enter

Entries should be sent to Ruth Webb, 15 Southcote Road, London SE25 4RG. Entries must arrive by January 10, 2009.

For more information or to receive a hard copy of the entry form and confirmation slip, e-mail Sarah M. Hall at: smhall123@yahoo.co.uk

Rules of the essay competition

Writers are advised to read and follow the competition rules below, which come from the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain.

COMPETITION RULES
The essay, on the topic “Virginia Woolf and the Common Reader,” should be between 2,000 and 2,500 words in length. It should be the original work of the named entrant, and previously unpublished in print or any other medium. Student coursework is acceptable.

Each entry should include the official entry form, which can be obtained here. Just scroll down the page for the official form.

Entrants should supply THREE typed copies of the essay on A4 paper, printed on one side only, double-spaced (or 1.5) and in a font size no smaller than 10-point. The VWSGB regrets that no e-mailed entries will be accepted because of printing costs.

The competition will be judged by acclaimed Woolf scholars Lyndall Gordon and Maggie Humm, and VWSGB Vice-Chair and Woolf biographer Ruth Webb. The decision of the judges is final. The society reserves the right not to award the prize if, in the judges’ opinion, none of the entries attains the required standard. Otherwise the winner will be contacted in mid-March.

The winner will receive a cheque for £250, presented at the society’s annual general meeting in central London on April 4, 2009, and the winning essay will be published in the Virginia Woolf Bulletin. If the winner is unable to attend the April 2009 general meeting, the prize will be sent by secure mail.

PLEASE NOTE
No entry will be accepted without the signed entry form, which should be attached to the first page of the first copy of the essay. There should be no personal details on the essay pages themselves.

The society cannot return entries. Acknowledgement of receipt can only be given if the entrant supplies an SAE containing the confirmation slip. Entrants from outside the UK should e-mail Sarah M. Hall at smhall123@yahoo.co.uk for confirmation of receipt.

Thirty-four essays by Virginia Woolf will be reprinted for the first time when Stuart N. Clarke publishes Volume VI of Woolf’s essays, he reports via the VW Listserv.

Nearly all are listed in the fourth edition of A Bibliography of Virginia Woolf, 4th ed., by B. J. Kirkpatrick and Clarke, published in Oxford by the Clarendon Press in 1997.

Two books that feature Virginia Woolf are in the running for for this year’s Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction, according to the Guardian.

Mrs. Woolf and the Servants, Alison Light’s account of Woolf’s relationships with her live-in staff, is one.  In it, Light explores the ’sordid’ power struggle between Virginia Woolf and her live-in cook, Nellie.

Lisa Appignanesi’s Mad, Bad and Sad, a history covering the way women were treated for mental issues, is the other.

Both books are included among 20 books on the longlist.

The shortlist of five books will be announced May 15, with the £30,000 prize to the top book awarded at a July 15 ceremony in London.

Did Virginia Woolf really do all of her writing standing up?

A student asked me that question recently, and I had to think for a moment before I could give her an answer.

We had just finished reading Three Guineas for a class I teach on gender roles in war and peace. The students were not familiar with Woolf. Some of them admitted being afraid to read her novels, as they had heard she was “difficult.” Most had not read more than a snippet or two of A Room of One’s Own.

The student raised the question of Woolf’s writing posture when we took a break in our discussion of Three Guineas. She had read that Woolf did all of her writing standing up, she said, and found it unbelievable that Woolf — or anyone — would be able to do so much writing on foot. It sounded exhausting.

I was excited by her question. It meant that despite the rumored or real “difficulty” of Woolf’s writing, this student had appreciated her enough to find out more about her.

I told my student that I thought Woolf had used a stand-up desk as a young woman living in her parents’ home in Kensington. I mentioned, too, that I recalled seeing a regular desk and chair in Woolf’s writing lodge at Monk’s House in Sussex.

Later, I found a photo posted on Flikr by Renaud Camus that pictures the desk. The Smith College Libraries Woolf in the World online exhibit also links an image of Robert Browning’s portable desk to a quote from one of Woolf’s letters in which she asks for “a desk that shuts up… something that would hold all my letters, papers, ink pots, & shut up & lock, & have drawers, & harmonise with my sister’s decorations.”

And, of course, one can order one’s own Woolf-alike stand-up desk, as long as one has the necessary stamina for writing on foot, as well as the requisite funds.

Read more about where writers write and the routines they follow — including a mention of Woolf’s — on the BBC Web site.

It was 67 years ago today, March 28, 1941, that Virginia Woolf left behind Leonard, Monk’s House, and two suicide notes and walked across the Sussex Downs.

With stones weighing down her coat pockets, she waded into the River Ouse and drowned.

In memoriam, we repeat the last line of the memorial poem Vita Sackville-West wrote in tribute to Woolf, which was published in The Observer in April of 1941. It contains more truth than Sackville-West could have imagined.

“She now has gone/Into the  prouder world of immortality,” Sackville-West wrote.

For a touching video that pays homage to what Woolf accomplished during her life — and what she could have accomplished if she had lived on – watch “The Adventures of Virginia Woolf“ on You Tube.

For an earlier memoriam to Woolf, click here.

Or read more about the response of her contemporaries to her untimely death in the 2005 book, Afterwords: Letters on the Death of Virginia Woolf, edited by Sybil Oldfield.