Virginia Woolf's Women

By Vanessa Curtis

A work of original and detailed research this is the first biography to concentrate exclusively on Woolf's close and inspirational female friendships with the key women in her life. Vanessa Curtis looks both at the effect of these relationships on her emotional life and the inspiration that each woman provided for the female protagonists in her fiction. Women inspired and fascinated Woolf until the day she died, evoking not only her loyalty, love and wit, but also anger, envy and insecurity. The author begins by exposing the lesser-known details of Woolf's Victorian childhood, spent underneath the suffocating wings of the 'angels in the house' who instilled in her a lifelong battle between creativity and convention. The journey continues with a study of the other unique women in Woolf's life: her silent sister, Vanessa Bell; enigmatic artist Dora Carrington; complex writer Katherine Mansfield; aristocratic novelist Vita Sackville-West and riotous, militant composer Ethel Smyth. Virginia Woolf's Women takes the reader on an intimate journey through the most important female relationships of Woolf's life, drawing on much previously unpublished archive correspondence and photography, ultimately revealing an honest portrait of Virginia Woolf as writer, daughter, sister, lover and friend.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Hale
• Release date: Jul 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9780719815850

Reviews for Virginia Woolf's Women

[rainpebble_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have been interested for some time in reading more of Virginia Woolf's works and so I wanted to read more about the woman herself. This book, with quite an ambiguous title, gave me a lot of information on the lady in question and as the title tells us, also how some of the women who were part of her life throughout and/or at different times affected her and her work.The women in the life of Virginia Stephen Woolf seem all to have been fascinating women; from her mother, grandmother and sister to the female friends, confidantes and lovers. Those ladies included in this study are her mother Julia, her sister Vanessa, her stepsister Stella, her grandmother Maria, family friend Violet Dickinson, society hostess Ottoline Morrell, fellow authors Katherine Mansfield and Vita Sackville-West, painter Dora Carrington, and composer/sometime conductor Ethel Smyth, among others.Virginia's life was filled, literally, with tragedy from a very early age on. She lost so many of her loved ones and suffered from depression and mental illness throughout her entire life. She was finally able to find stability and happiness with her husband Leonard, whom she married in 1912. Their marriage was seen as unconventional due to the fact that it was based more on intellectual companionship than physical love and passion. They did, however, share a mutual loyalty, commitment, frankness and love.Although Virginia suffered greatly throughout her lifetime, she brought much joy and pleasure to her family and those who loved her. She took her life in 1941. Virginia Woolf was 59 years of age.