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Last edited by George
May 17, 2011 | History

Virginia Woolf

25 January 1882 - 28 March 1941

Virginia Woolf was an English novelist, essayist, diarist, epistler, publisher, feminist, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century. (Source.)

Comment from Ursula Le Guin on The Guardian:

You can't write science fiction well if you haven't read it, though not all who try to write it know this. But nor can you write it well if you haven't read anything else. Genre is a rich dialect, in which you can say certain things in a particularly satisfying way, but if it gives up connection with the general literary language it becomes a jargon, meaningful only to an ingroup. Useful models may be found quite outside the genre. I learned a lot from reading the ever-subversive Virginia Woolf.

I was 17 when I read Orlando. It was half-revelation, half-confusion to me at that age, but one thing was clear: that she imagined a society vastly different from our own, an exotic world, and brought it dramatically alive. I'm thinking of the Elizabethan scenes, the winter when the Thames froze over. Reading, I was there, saw the bonfires blazing in the ice, felt the marvellous strangeness of that moment 500 years ago – the authentic thrill of being taken absolutely elsewhere.

How did she do it? By precise, specific descriptive details, not heaped up and not explained: a vivid, telling imagery, highly selected, encouraging the reader's imagination to fill out the picture and see it luminous, complete.

In Flush, Woolf gets inside a dog's mind, that is, a non-human brain, an alien mentality – very science-fictional if you look at it that way. Again what I learned was the power of accurate, vivid, highly selected detail. I imagine Woolf looking down at the dog asleep beside the ratty armchair she wrote in and thinking what are your dreams? and listening . . . sniffing the wind . . . after the rabbit, out on the hills, in the dog's timeless world.

Useful stuff, for those who like to see through eyes other than our own.

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Photo of Virginia Woolf
Subjects
History and criticism, Accessible book, Biography, Fiction, Protected DAISY, Women authors, In library, Correspondence, English Novelists, English fiction, English Authors, Women, Description and travel, History, English literature, Social conditions, Literature, Peace, War, Women and literature, Poetry, Social life and customs, Economic conditions, Theory, Women in literature
Places
Great Britain, England, London (England), South America, Europe, Travel, France, Grande-Bretagne, Italy, London, Mediterranean Region, Scotland, Skye, Skye, Island of (Scotland), United States, Vence (France)
People
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), Lytton Strachey (1880-1932), Arnold Bennett (1867-1931), Beau Brummell (1778-1840), Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), Ellen Terry Dame (1847-1928), Gwen Raverat (1885-1957), Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), Jacques Raverat (1885-1925), Julia Margaret Pattle Cameron (1815-1879), Leo Tolstoy graf (1828-1910), Leonard Woolf (1880-1969), Roger Eliot Fry (1866-1934), Roger Fry (1866-1934), Virginia (Stephen), 1882-1941 Woolf, Virginia Stephen, 1882-1941 Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941 Woolf, Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1941), Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942), Walter Sickert (1860-1942)
Time
20th century, 19th century, 1890s, 1923, June, Siglo XX, late 19th or early 20th century

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Alternative names

  • Adeline Virginia Woolf
  • Virginia, Woolf
  • Virginia woolf
  • Virginia Stephen Woolf

History Created April 1, 2008 · 9 revisions
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May 17, 2011 Edited by George Edited without comment.
May 17, 2011 Edited by George Added piece from here, by Ursula Le Guin: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/14/science-fiction-authors-choice
March 26, 2011 Edited by Anonymous Added new photo
August 16, 2010 Edited by George merge authors
April 1, 2008 Created by an anonymous user initial import