Flush: A Biography

By Virginia Woolf

Flush: A Biography, an imaginative biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's cocker spaniel, is a cross-genre blend of fiction and nonfiction.
Commonly read as a modernist consideration of city life seen through the eyes of a dog, Flush serves as a harsh criticism of the supposedly unnatural ways of living in the city. The figure of Elizabeth Barrett Browning in the text is often read as an analogue for other female intellectuals, like Woolf herself, who suffered from illness, feigned or real, as a part of their status as female writers. Most insightful and experimental are Woolf’s emotional and philosophical views verbalized in Flush’s thoughts. As he spends more time with Barrett Browning, Flush becomes emotionally and spiritually connected to the poetess and both begin to understand each other despite their language barriers. For Flush smell is poetry, but for Barrett Browning, poetry is impossible without words. In Flush Woolf examines the barriers that exist between woman and animal created by language yet overcome through symbolic actions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Booklassic
• Release date: Jun 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9789635267316

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf was born in 1882, the youngest daughter of the Victorian writer Leslie Stephen. After her father's death, Virginia moved with her sister Vanessa (later Vanessa Bell) and two of her brothers, to 46 Gordon Square, which was to be the first meeting place of the Bloomsbury Group. Virginia married Leonard Woolf in 1912, and together they established the Hogarth Press. Virginia also published her first novel, The Voyage Out, in 1912, and she subsequently wrote eight more, several of which are considered classics, as well as two books of seminal feminist thought. Woolf suffered from mental illness throughout her life and committed suicide in 1941.

Reviews for Flush

[thecrow2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

... or the story of a cocker spaniel. The imaginary biography of the real english poet Elizabeth Browning and her real dog through the eyes of the latter. Nice short read.

[rainpebble_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Flush: A Biography by Virginia Woolf; Persephone; (5*)Flush is a first person fictional narrative about the Cocker Spaniel owned by Elizabeth Barrett/Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The real dog was stolen three times but in the novella it is capsulized into a story of one theft.Virginia Woolf opens the novel writing as if the book is non-fiction. After a few pages, she slips into the narrative form with the dog describing his life. She explores the dog's relation to the owner and tells us what it is like to be a dog. The dog is very sensitive to the moods of his owner and is protective, even becoming jealous on an occasion or two. One could say that Woolf gives Flush a soul.This story is light hearted and avoids the heavy cloud of despair usually portrayed in books about the Barretts of Wimpole Street, though Wimpole Street is the setting of the first part of the book.I loved how Woolf described Flush running through the parks, chasing birds & whatnot; lying soaking up the sun, etc. Her descriptiveness of a 'dog's life' is pretty spot on. This story allows Woolf to be more playful than any of the other piece she has written. The mix of fiction and fact allows her to tell a story filled with heroes and villians which make the book quite captivating like an adult fairy tale. By the end I was fully engaged and completely consumed by Flush and his life. I didn't want it to end but sadly it had to. This is a must for any fan of Woolf or even anyone who has a love for animals. The deeper meaning of the narrative is the telling of loyalty and love. We can all take a lesson from that.I fell in love with this little book and highly recommend it. It boggles my mind just how timeless Virginia Woolf's works are.

[valzi-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My favorite biography. This short novel/biography is about Elizabeth Barret Browning's dog, and it cites its sources. Fanciful, humorous, but still meaningful, and it has my favorite ending paragraph of any book I've read so far.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I love dogs and 19th century British literature so I couldn't resist this biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Cocker Spaniel, Flush, when I came across it in my public library's Overdrive collection. Elizabeth Barrett was an invalid when Flush came to live with her. By the end of Flush's life, she had married Robert Browning and moved to Italy. Flush's biography gives readers a dog's eye view of the Brownings' courtship and marriage. Woolf's writing reveals an understanding of and sympathy with dogs. She also slips in some interesting tidbits about Browning's circle, such as Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton believing himself to be invisible. It's an undemanding and entertaining read that will appeal to many dog lovers.

[laytonwoman3rd · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Meh. Virginia Woolf's biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's cocker spaniel. I already knew the outline of Flush's life, partly from Shaggy Muses by Maureen Adams, and it just didn't bear up to further attention, I guess. It's not much of a story, except for the kidnapping part. But maybe, if you weren't already familiar with it...

[dbsovereign · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A blend of fiction and non-fiction, this is a neo-biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning told from the point of view of her cocker spaniel. Sensitive, real and very very cute.

[thorold_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This evidently isn't quite the lightweight literary joke Woolf pretends it is: I've been working my own way through EBB's letters lately, and I can confirm that it's not something you can do in a couple of afternoons in a deck chair. By my count, she must have trawled through something like 3000 pages of letters to get together the material for this little book, not to mention some supremely-boring tomes on dog-breeding. There's obviously more to it than just a playful response to Strachey's Eminent Victorians and the serious art of literary biography as practised by Woolf's father.One thing she's doing, clearly, is using the dog's point of view on the Brownings as a pretext for filtering the information we are given, so that their "Great Romance" can be made to fit her own agenda. Robert Browning is deliberately marginalised (as, oddly enough, is Elizabeth Wilson, who is relegated to a six-page footnote) so that we see EBB digging her own escape-tunnel out of Wimpole Street. This is also underlined by the way EBB's ill-health is treated: in Woolf's account, we are allowed to suppose that she becomes perfectly fit and well once she manages to free herself from the claustrophobic confinement of Wimpole Street/England/her father. A lot is made of the contrast between England, with its Kennel Club rules and park-keepers to enforce rigid class-distinctions, where dogs must be kept on chains for their own protection from evil dog-snatchers (i.e. the lower classes), and the friendly, noisy, and constructive chaos of Italy. (This looks a little odd for someone writing in 1932: Britain is effectively being associated with the mindless fascism of the dog-breeding books, Italy with liberalism. Musso-who?)I think Woolf does allow us to be a little critical of EBB: like Woolf herself, she was a clever woman who profited from a privileged background and a Room of Her Own to establish herself as a writer. From the dog's point of view, the poet's "writing, writing, writing" is a futile exercise not to be compared with the joys of pursuing carefree canine sexual encounters, discarded macaroni, and the many fascinating smells of Florence. And she does get in a few digs at EBB's weakness for the Spiritualist fashion of the time. All the same, we're definitely not meant to see how dependent EBB was on her husband and servants for the practicalities of life, and by quoting the sonnet "To Flush" in the closing pages Woolf ensures that we are left with the idea that poetry is important, whatever a dog may think.So, it's selective, it's polemic, but it's Woolf pulling out all the stops to write lively, intelligent, subversive prose, and to give proper credit to a great poet who was going through rather a phase of neglect at the time. We can enjoy it without getting too worked up about the message.

[2chances · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Wait, wait, this is Virginia Woolf? Somehow I thought it would be...well, VERY different. Flush is the spaniel who famously belonged to Elizabeth Barrett Browning (she wrote a poem to him) and I really can't make out what Woolf was aiming at with this one. The book is written as a straightforward biography - it is not particularly cutesy, and not written tongue-in-cheek either, although there are certainly flashes of humor. There is interesting detail about the Brownings, most of it historically accurate, some of it less so; there are quotes from Elizabeth's letters, and I DO love anyone who quotes from the letters, which happen to be my very favorite reading material of all time. But quite honestly? It's a quick and quite pleasant read, but...Maybe it's me, but i just don't get the point of this canine biography.

[chris_v_7 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A delightful short story of the relationship between poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning told from the point of view of Barrett's spaniel pet Flush. Humorous and cleverly told

[harro004 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful! With great wit and insight into the dog/human bond

[alexthehunn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Woolf tells the story of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett from the point of view of their dog, Flush. Besides being interesting in conception, Woolf brings to bear her enormous talents as a crafter of Englis.

[donnamariemerritt · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An imaginative book! Based on bits Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote about her cocker spaniel, Virginia Woolf gives him a voice. It's a quick, light read, perfect for a summer day or even a cold winter evening by the fire. Weirdly, the dog on the cover is not a cocker spaniel and, in fact, I cannot find any publisher info inside. Looks like it may have been self-pubbed and POD, so someone could be profiting from Woolf's work. I'd advise choosing any version but this one for that reason.

[pennsylady · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Written by Virginia Woolfe, published in 1933....a biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's cocker spaniel, FlushSometimes whimsical, sometimes sober, the story is told from the Flush's perspective.....a unique glance at Victorian England and the vintage feeling of entering the everyday life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning★ ★ ★ ★

[edwinbcn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you have felt awed and reluctant to read Virginia Woolf, whose novels do suffer from the reputation of being intellectual or difficult, it might be refreshing to try some of her later work. While strream-of-consciousness is supposedly a very free style, characterised by impulsiveness and lack of restraint, some readers experience Woolf's early novels as experimental and confusing.However, Virginia Woolf also has a very humouristic side to her, which, combined with a virtuous command of the language had led to the creation of some very fine prose, such as in the autobiographical Moments of Being. Some of Woolf's non-fiction is also of lasting impressions, particularly recommendable there would be the short, but very fine essays in The London Scene, published in 1931. Readers who would dismiss Flush. A biography, published in 1933, as a silly story about a dog, should think twice. Actually, the book is a very clever biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 – 1861) was one of the most important Victorian English poets. She was weak and sickly from an early age, a condition which improved when she moved to Italy in the 1840s. Out of admiration for her poetry, the British poet Robert Browning started a correspondance with her, secretly courting, and eventually marrying her. She took an interest in the social cause, and was a follower of the progressive ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft.Readers of Woolf's Flush. A biography would be largely aware of the biography ofElizabeth Barrett Browning, although she had died 70 years earlier. Woolf's book puports to be the biography of Barrett Browning's dog, which in some sense it is. Elizabeth Barrett Browning did own a dog, Flush, which was given her by her friend Mary Russell Mitford, and many of the incidences described in the biography really occured. Based on letters and other documents, Woolf reconstructed and described the life of the dog.This is done with a great deal of humour, and empathy. The unique perspective, that is to say, the world from the viewpoint of a dog, is remarkably, cleverly well-done. There is a great amount of detail in describing noise, odours, and colours. But dogs and also very good at sensing the mood of their owners, and the mood and life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning shines through in every part of the book.As a pedigree spaniel, Flush was a very aristocratic dog, and its life in the household at Wimpole Street reflects that social states. The social agenda of poverty in the slums of London sneaks into the book in the episode which describes how Flush was kidnapped for ransom. After all, the life time of Flush was the high time of publication of Charles Dickens. Flush. A biography has quite some characteristics of the rags-and-riches, or prince-and-pauper style fiction, and also forms a prelude to the later famous The Hundred and One Dalmatians by the English novelist Dodie Smith.All in all, Flush. A biography is a very poetic biography of particular interest to readers who enjoy literary criticism, cultural history, and particularly biography describing the inspirational part of the Victorian era, and its light-footed escape to Pisa and Florence.

[kasthu_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have no idea how to categorize Flush: a Biography. Flush is a “biography” of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s devoted spaniel, which is fictional and imaginative, so it’s basically a cross-genre book. The novella covers Flush’s long lifespan and highlights major event in his life, starting with his arrival at the Wimpole Street house in 1842. We also get to see Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s life through Flush’s eyes, from her courtship with Robert Browning to their elopement to Italy and beyond.I expected this novella (for it’s not really a biography in the traditional sense) to be more in the style of Virginia Woolf’s other novels, so I was a little bit apprehensive about Flush. But I was pleasantly surprised. Flush is an easy, enjoyable read, mostly because of the subject matter, but also because it’s an extremely playful and sometimes funny read. Virginia Woolf infuses Flush with warmth and life and makes him a likeable character. He is extremely snobbish and has a really defined sense of class and his own place in the world—a small-scale reflection of what’s going on in Victorian London. He can be a bit boorish at times, but he is still lovable. Woolf really gets you into Flush’s head without making the story or subject matter seem too twee. I especially liked the way Woolf dealt with the birth of the Brownings’ son, and how confused poor Flush was! Flush is one of Virginia Woolf’s lesser-known works, but it’s a very clever novel nonetheless.

[futuremrsjoshgroban · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Now, I'd read more Virgina Woolf if it was like this!I loved this book like I haven't loved an animal book since I was 11 years old!I already love reading about Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, and to read about their lives, as well as to read vivid descriptions of 19th century England and Italy, through the eyes of Elizabeth's dog Flush was absolutely wonderful.

[musicmom41 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the story of the romance of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning as seen through the eyes of Elizabeth’s dog, Flush. My public library categorizes this as “Biography” as does the designation on the back of my copy. Virginia Woolf’s notes at the end of the book tells where she found the information she includes which qualifies it as biography. Most importantly, my 999 Biography category needs more help than my 999 Poets & Poetry category! That said, this is a delightful read for a leisurely afternoon. Woolf really understands dogs and Flush is very believable and a well rounded “character.” Highly recommended for those who love dogs and/or Virginia Woolf.