Becoming Virginia Woolf: Her Early Diaries and the Diaries She Read
“Explores the history of Woolf's diaries, not only to reveal heretofore unremarked sources but also to trace her evolving sense of possibilities in diary-writing, possibilities which helped shape Woolf as a fiction writer. A must-read for devotees of Virginia Woolf.”—Panthea Reid, author of Art and Affection: A Life of Virginia Woolf
 
“This revealing book gives us a diarist with greater literary range than Pepys and affords us a second pleasure: the infinitely varied voices of the diaries Virginia read. They fascinate us as they fascinate her: those writers who encouraged, warned, comforted, and trained a developing genius.”—Nancy Price, author of Sleeping with the Enemy
 
“Lounsberry’s deeply researched and gracefully written book shows not only Woolf’s development into a great diarist but also her evolvement into the fiction and nonfiction writer revered today.”—Gay Talese, author of A Writer’s Life
 
Encompassing thirty-eight handwritten volumes, Virginia Woolf’s diary is her lengthiest and longest-sustained work—and her last to reach the public. In the only full-length book to explore deeply this luminous and boundary-stretching masterpiece, Barbara Lounsberry traces Woolf’s development as a writer through her first twelve diaries—a fascinating experimental stage, where the earliest hints of Woolf’s pioneering modernist style can be seen.

Starting with fourteen-year-old Woolf’s first palm-sized leather diary, Becoming Virginia Woolf illuminates how her private and public writing was shaped by the diaries of other writers including Samuel Pepys, James Boswell, the French Goncourt brothers, Mary Coleridge, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Woolf’s “diary parents”—Sir Walter Scott and Fanny Burney. These key literary connections open a new and indispensable window onto the story of one of literature’s most renowned modernists.
 
1116819685
Becoming Virginia Woolf: Her Early Diaries and the Diaries She Read
“Explores the history of Woolf's diaries, not only to reveal heretofore unremarked sources but also to trace her evolving sense of possibilities in diary-writing, possibilities which helped shape Woolf as a fiction writer. A must-read for devotees of Virginia Woolf.”—Panthea Reid, author of Art and Affection: A Life of Virginia Woolf
 
“This revealing book gives us a diarist with greater literary range than Pepys and affords us a second pleasure: the infinitely varied voices of the diaries Virginia read. They fascinate us as they fascinate her: those writers who encouraged, warned, comforted, and trained a developing genius.”—Nancy Price, author of Sleeping with the Enemy
 
“Lounsberry’s deeply researched and gracefully written book shows not only Woolf’s development into a great diarist but also her evolvement into the fiction and nonfiction writer revered today.”—Gay Talese, author of A Writer’s Life
 
Encompassing thirty-eight handwritten volumes, Virginia Woolf’s diary is her lengthiest and longest-sustained work—and her last to reach the public. In the only full-length book to explore deeply this luminous and boundary-stretching masterpiece, Barbara Lounsberry traces Woolf’s development as a writer through her first twelve diaries—a fascinating experimental stage, where the earliest hints of Woolf’s pioneering modernist style can be seen.

Starting with fourteen-year-old Woolf’s first palm-sized leather diary, Becoming Virginia Woolf illuminates how her private and public writing was shaped by the diaries of other writers including Samuel Pepys, James Boswell, the French Goncourt brothers, Mary Coleridge, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Woolf’s “diary parents”—Sir Walter Scott and Fanny Burney. These key literary connections open a new and indispensable window onto the story of one of literature’s most renowned modernists.
 
24.95 Out Of Stock
Becoming Virginia Woolf: Her Early Diaries and the Diaries She Read

Becoming Virginia Woolf: Her Early Diaries and the Diaries She Read

by Barbara Lounsberry
Becoming Virginia Woolf: Her Early Diaries and the Diaries She Read

Becoming Virginia Woolf: Her Early Diaries and the Diaries She Read

by Barbara Lounsberry

Paperback(Reprint)

$24.95 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Temporarily Out of Stock Online
  • PICK UP IN STORE

    Your local store may have stock of this item.

Related collections and offers


Overview

“Explores the history of Woolf's diaries, not only to reveal heretofore unremarked sources but also to trace her evolving sense of possibilities in diary-writing, possibilities which helped shape Woolf as a fiction writer. A must-read for devotees of Virginia Woolf.”—Panthea Reid, author of Art and Affection: A Life of Virginia Woolf
 
“This revealing book gives us a diarist with greater literary range than Pepys and affords us a second pleasure: the infinitely varied voices of the diaries Virginia read. They fascinate us as they fascinate her: those writers who encouraged, warned, comforted, and trained a developing genius.”—Nancy Price, author of Sleeping with the Enemy
 
“Lounsberry’s deeply researched and gracefully written book shows not only Woolf’s development into a great diarist but also her evolvement into the fiction and nonfiction writer revered today.”—Gay Talese, author of A Writer’s Life
 
Encompassing thirty-eight handwritten volumes, Virginia Woolf’s diary is her lengthiest and longest-sustained work—and her last to reach the public. In the only full-length book to explore deeply this luminous and boundary-stretching masterpiece, Barbara Lounsberry traces Woolf’s development as a writer through her first twelve diaries—a fascinating experimental stage, where the earliest hints of Woolf’s pioneering modernist style can be seen.

Starting with fourteen-year-old Woolf’s first palm-sized leather diary, Becoming Virginia Woolf illuminates how her private and public writing was shaped by the diaries of other writers including Samuel Pepys, James Boswell, the French Goncourt brothers, Mary Coleridge, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Woolf’s “diary parents”—Sir Walter Scott and Fanny Burney. These key literary connections open a new and indispensable window onto the story of one of literature’s most renowned modernists.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780813061399
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Publication date: 07/15/2015
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 272
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Barbara Lounsberry is professor emerita of English at the University of Northern Iowa. She is the author of The Art of Fact: Contemporary Artists of Nonfiction and coeditor of Writing Creative Nonfiction: The Literature of Reality.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

List of Abbreviations xi

Introduction 1

1 Early Diary Influences 11

Virginia Woolf's 1897 Diary 12

Sir Walter Scott's "Gurnal" 14

Fanny Burney's Diary 19

Samuel Pepys's Diary 31

William Johnson Cory's Journals 37

Virginia Woolf's 1897 Diary Concluded 40

2 The Experimenter 45

Virginia Woolf s 1899 Warboys Diary 45

3 Choosing the Outsider Role 54

Virginia Woolf's 1903 Diary 55

James Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. 67

4 Professional Writer 75

Virginia Woolf's 1904-1905 Diary 75

5 Embracing the Unconscious 81

Virginia's Woolf's Ghostly 1905 Cornwall Diary 82

Virginia Woolf's 1906-1908 Great Britain Travel Diary 87

William Allingham's Diary 102

Lady Dorothy Nevill s Note-books 107

Lady Charlotte Bury's Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting 109

Virginia Woolf's Great Britain Travel Diary Concluded 114

6 The Problem of Description 121

Virginia Woolf's 1906-1909 Continental Travel Diary 122

The Journal of Elizabeth Lady Holland 129

Virginia Woolf's Continental Travel Diary Concluded 132

Virginia Woolf's 1909 Life Diary 135

Dr. Charles Meryon's Diaries Celebrating Lady Hester Stanhope 147

Ralph Waldo Emerson's Early Journals 152

Mary Coleridge's Diary 158

7 The Diary Coalesces 163

Virginia Woolf's 1915 Diary 163

Mary Berry's Journals 173

Virginia Woolf's Asheham House Natural History Diary: 1917-1918 183

Virginia Woolf's 1917-1918 Collaborative Hogarth House Diary 188

The Journals of Edmond and Jules de Goncourt 198

Stopford Brooke s Diary 206

Virginia Woolf's 1918 Coalescing Hogarth House Diary: January 4-July 23 213

Epilogue 225

Notes 227

Works Consulted 241

Index 247

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews