The Hidden Houses of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell

Description

In 1904, Virginia Woolf made her own reverent pilgrimage to the home of the Bronte sisters in Yorkshire, a journey that enabled her to set the work of Charlotte Bronte in context with the writer's life. Now, for the first time, Vanessa Curtis has visited and researched the early holiday homes used by Virginia and her sister Vanessa between 1882 and 1908. Her journey rediscovers the splendour of long summers spent at ancient Jacobean halls, the tranquil beauty of an Edwardian Christmas in the New Forest, the heady pleasures of returning to a childhood haunt in Cornwall and a wealth of Victorian holidays spent at cottages and lodging-houses across England. In this unique biography of place, Curtis studies these 'hidden houses' in conjunction with the novels of Virginia Woolf and the diaries and letters of both Woolf, and her sister Vanessa Bell. Archive photographs provide a unique glimpse into the world of the upper-middle-class Victorian/Edwardian holidaymaker, whilst original research gives an added insight into the minds, inspired by the landscapes of the English countryside and coast, of two of the most colourful members of the Bloomsbury Group: the passionate, committed painter Vanessa Bell and, Virginia Woolf, one of the most enigmatic and enduring writers of the twentieth century.

Vanessa Curtis is the author of Virginia Woolf's Women (also published by Hale) and a co-founder of The Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain. She reviews books and writes articles for The Times, Herald, Scotland on Sunday, etc. She is married and lives near Chichester Harbour.