McLaurin Allen - Virginia Woolf : the critical heritage

VIRGINIA WOOLF: THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE SERIES

General Editor: B. C. Southam

The Critical Heritage series collects together a large body of criticism on major figures in literature. Each volume presents the contemporary responses to a particular writer, enabling the student to follow the formation of critical attitudes to the writers work and its place within a literary tradition.

The carefully selected sources range from landmark essays in the history of criticism to fragments of contemporary opinion and little published documentary material, such as letters and diaries.

Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included in order to demonstrate fluctuations in reputation following the writers death.

VIRGINIA WOOLF

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

Edited by

ROBIN MAJUMDAR & ALLEN MCLAURIN

First published 1975 by Routledge
Published 2014 by Routledge
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Compilation, introduction, notes and index
1975 Robin Majumdar and Allen Mclaurin

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

ISBN: 978-0-415-15914-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-56899-9 (pbk)

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent.

The reception given to a writer by his contemporaries and near-contemporaries is evidence of considerable value to the student of literature. On one side we learn a great deal about the state of criticism at large and in particular about the development of critical attitudes towards a single writer; at the same time, through private comments in letters, journals or marginalia, we gain an insight upon the tastes and literary thought of individual readers of the period. Evidence of this kind helps us to understand the writers historical situation, the nature of his immediate reading-public, and his response to these pressures.

The separate volumes in the Critical Heritage Series present a record of this early criticism. Clearly, for many of the highly productive and lengthily reviewed nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers, there exists an enormous body of material; and in these cases the volume editors have made a selection of the most important views, significant for their intrinsic critical worth or for their representative qualityperhaps even registering incomprehension!

For earlier writers, notably pre-eighteenth century, the materials are much scarcer and the historical period has been extended, sometimes far beyond the writers lifetime, in order to show the inception and growth of critical views which were initially slow to appear.

In each volume the documents are headed by an Introduction, discussing the material assembled and relating the early stages of the authors reception to what we have come to identify as the critical tradition. The volumes will make available much material which would otherwise be difficult of access and it is hoped that the modern reader will be thereby helped towards an informed understanding of the ways in which literature has been read and judged.

B.C.S.

The editor and publishers would like to thank the following for permission to reprint material within their copyright or other control:

Mr Conrad Aiken for No. 65 ; Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd for Nos 67 and 87; Atlantic Monthly for No. 57; Mr Michael Ayrton for No. 31 ; Professor Quentin Bell for No. 43 ; The Bodley Head Ltd and Mr Philip Henderson for No. 103c; Brandt & Brandt and Mr Conrad Aiken for No. 74, copyright 1935, 1939, 1940, 1942, 1951, 1958 by Conrad Aiken; Cambridge University Press for Nos 97b and 116; Frank Cass & Company Ltd for No. 53; Chatto & Windus Ltd, Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich Inc. and the Editors Literary Estates, 1956 by Leonard Woolf and James Strachey, for Nos 11, 12, 24 and 25 ; Mr H. P. Collins for No. 47; Constable Publishers for No. 19; Cornhill Magazine for No. 105a; Mr Malcolm Cowley for No. 133, copyright 1941, renewed copyright 1969, by Malcolm Cowley; Curtis Brown Ltd and Pamela Hansford Johnson for No. 113; Daily Telegraph and Morning Post for Nos 3 and 30; Professor William Empson and Lawrence & Wishart Ltd, for No. 97a; London Evening News for No. 85; London Evening Standard for Nos 58, 63, 73 and 81; Faber & Faber Ltd for No. 59; Victor Gollancz Ltd for No. 103 b; Guardian for Nos 6 and 45; the late L. P. Hartley for No. 88; David Higham Associates Ltd for No. 16; Hogarth Press Ltd for No. 52; Hope Leresche & Steele and Mr Frank Swinnerton for Nos 40 and 104; Storm Jameson for Nos 77 and 90; Mrs G. A. Wyndham Lewis for No. 102a; London Express News & Feature Services for No. 109; M.Jean-Marie Marcel for No. 95 ; Mr Raymond Mortimer for No. 76; Mr Gavin Muir for Nos 41, 55, 66, 94, 112 and 131 ; Nation for Nos 8, 35, 93 and 134; New Statesman for Nos 7, 15, 18, 22, 29, 34, 37, 38, 39, 41, 51, 55, 56, 66, 86, 111, 120, 124 and 127; New York Times for Nos 61, 72, 89, 114 and 132, 1927-28-31-37 and 1941 by The New York Times Company; Mr Nigel Nicolson for Nos 80 and 84; Nuova Antologia for No. 99; Observer for Nos 2, 71, 108, 119 and 130; Oxford University Press for No. 101 ; A. D. Peters & Co. for No. 50; Laurence Pollinger Ltd and Mr Graham Greene for No. 121 ; Mr Edgell Rickword for No. 46, Edgell Rickword 1974 and Carcanet Press Ltd, from Essays and Opinions 192131 (1974); the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and the Society of Authors for No. 9; Rutgers University Press for Nos 98 and 115, from William Troy: Selected Essays, edited and introduction by S. E. Hyman, 1967, Rutgers The State University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA; San Francisco Chronicle for No. 92; Saturday Review, David Higham Associates Ltd, Professor Herbert Muller for Nos 48, 91a, 91b and 105b, copyright 1925, 1931, 1937 by Saturday Review Co. First appeared in Saturday Review 1925, 1931, 1937; Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd for No. 103; Sewanee Review for No. 82, first appeared in the Sewanee Review, xxxix (Fall 1931), 425-44; the Society of Authors, on behalf of Kings College, Cambridge for Nos 4, 14 and 54; Spectator for Nos 10, 62, 102b, 102c, 123 and 128; Mr Stephen Spender and the Listener for No. 125; Sunday Times for No. 70; Time & Tide for Nos 106 and 118; The Times Literary Supplement for Nos 1, 13,17, 21, 26, 44, 49, 60, 79, 83, 107, 117 and 129; Twentieth Century Magazine for Nos 100 and 135; Ruth Mary Underhill for No. 20; A. P. Watt & Son and Mrs Dorothy Cheston Bennett for Nos 36 and 73b; Yale Review for No. 75 ; Yorkshire Post for No. 32.

It has proved difficult in certain cases to locate the proprietors of copyright material. However all possible care has been taken to trace ownership of the selections included and to make full acknowledgment for their use.

Virginia Woolfs genius was proclaimed, certainly during her lifetime, and by some reviewers with the publication of her first novel. It is true that newspapers hail many writers each year as geniuses, but Virginia Woolfs writing gained not only swift, but also persistent and increasing attention and praise. It is partly a question of intelligent people recognising excellence, but there are other factors to be considered.