Between the Acts Read online

  Argument continues about the work and life of Virginia Woolf: about her experience of incest, her madness, her class attitudes, her sexuality, the difficulty of her prose, her politics, her feminism, and her legacy. Perhaps, though, these words from her essay “How Should One Read a Book?” are our best guide: “The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions.”

  —MARK HUSSEY, GENERAL EDITOR

  CHRONOLOGY

  Information is arranged in this order: 1. Virginia Woolf’s family and her works; 2. Cultural and political events; 3. Significant publications and works of art.

  1878

  Marriage of Woolf’s parents, Leslie Stephen (1832–1904) and Julia Prinsep Duckworth (née Jackson) (1846–1895). Leslie Stephen publishes Samuel Johnson, first volume in the English Men of Letters series.

  England at war in Afghanistan.

  1879

  Vanessa Stephen (Bell) born (d. 1961). Edward Burne-Jones paints Julia Stephen as the Virgin Mary in The Annunciation. Leslie Stephen, Hours in a Library, 3rd series.

  Somerville and Lady Margaret Hall Colleges for women founded at Oxford University. Anglo-Zulu war in South Africa.

  1880

  Thoby Stephen born (d. 1906).

  William Gladstone becomes prime minister for second time. First Boer War begins (1880–81). Deaths of Gustave Flaubert (b. 1821) and George Eliot (b. 1819). Lytton Strachey born (d. 1932).

  Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

  1881

  Leslie Stephen buys lease of Talland House, St. Ives, Cornwall.

  Cambridge University Tripos exams opened to women.

  Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts; Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady, Washington Square; Christina Rossetti, A Pageant and Other Poems; D. G. Rossetti, Ballads and Sonnets; Oscar Wilde, Poems.

  1882

  Adeline Virginia Stephen (Virginia Woolf) born January 25. Leslie Stephen begins work as editor of the Dictionary of National Biography (DNB); publishes The Science of Ethics. The Stephen family spends its first summer at Talland House.

  Married Women’s Property Act enables women to buy, sell, and own property and keep their own earnings. Triple Alliance between Germany, Italy, and Austria. Phoenix Park murders of British officials in Dublin, Ireland. James Joyce born (d. 1941). Death of Charles Darwin (b. 1809).

  1883

  Adrian Leslie Stephen born (d. 1948). Julia Stephen’s Notes from Sick Rooms published.

  Olive Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm; Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island.

  1884

  Leslie Stephen delivers the Clark Lectures at Cambridge University.

  Third Reform Act extends the franchise in England.

  Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State; John Ruskin, The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century; Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

  1885

  First volume of Leslie Stephen’s Dictionary of National Biography published.

  Redistribution Act further extends the franchise in England. Ezra Pound born (d. 1972); D. H. Lawrence born (d. 1930).

  George Meredith, Diana of the Crossways; Emile Zola, Germinal.

  1887

  Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.

  Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet; H. Rider Haggard, She; Thomas Hardy, The Woodlanders.

  1891

  Leslie Stephen gives up the DNB editorship. Laura Stephen (1870–1945) is placed in an asylum.

  William Gladstone elected prime minister of England a fourth time.

  Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles; Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

  1895

  Death of Julia Stephen.

  Armenian Massacres in Turkey. Discovery of X-rays by William Röntgen; Guglielmo Marconi discovers radio; invention of the cinematograph. Trials of Oscar Wilde.

  Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure; H. G. Wells, The Time Machine; Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest.

  1896

  Vanessa Stephen begins drawing classes three afternoons a week.

  Death of William Morris (b. 1834); F. Scott Fitzgerald born (d. 1940).

  Anton Chekhov, The Seagull.

  1897

  Woolf attends Greek and history classes at King’s College, London, and begins to keep a regular diary. Vanessa, Virginia, and Thoby watch Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee procession. Stella Duckworth (b. 1869) marries Jack Hills in April, but dies in July. Gerald Duckworth (1870–1937) establishes a publishing house.

  Paul Gauguin, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?;

  Bram Stoker, Dracula.

  1898

  Spanish-American War (1898–99). Marie Curie discovers radium. Death of Stéphane Mallarmé (b. 1842).

  H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds; Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

  1899

  Woolf begins Latin and Greek lessons with Clara Pater. Thoby Stephen goes up to Trinity College, Cambridge University, entering with Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf (1880–1969), and Clive Bell (1881–1964).

  The Second Boer War begins (1899–1902) in South Africa. Ernest Hemingway born (d. 1961).

  1900

  Woolf and Vanessa attend the Trinity College Ball at Cambridge University.

  Deaths of Friedrich Nietzsche (b. 1844), John Ruskin (b. 1819), and Oscar Wilde (b. 1854).

  Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams.

  1901

  Vanessa enters Royal Academy Schools.

  Queen Victoria dies January 22. Edward VII becomes king. Marconi sends messages by wireless telegraphy from Cornwall to Newfoundland.

  1902

  Woolf begins classics lessons with Janet Case. Adrian Stephen enters Trinity College, Cambridge University. Leslie Stephen is knighted.

  Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Henry James, The Wings of the Dove; William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience.

  1903

  The Wright Brothers fly a biplane 852 feet. Women’s Social and Political Union founded in England by Emmeline Pankhurst.

  1904

  Sir Leslie Stephen dies. George Duckworth (1868–1934) marries Lady Margaret Herbert. The Stephen children—Vanessa, Virginia, Thoby, and Adrian—move to 46 Gordon Square, in the Bloomsbury district of London. Woolf contributes to F. W. Maitland’s biography of her father. Leonard Woolf comes to dine before sailing for Ceylon. Woolf travels in Italy and France. Her first publication is an unsigned review in the Guardian, a church weekly.

  “Empire Day” inaugurated in London and in Britain’s colonies.

  Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard; Henry James, The Golden Bowl.

  1905

  Woolf begins teaching weekly adult education classes at Morley College. Thoby invites Cambridge friends to their home for “Thursday Evenings”—the beginnings of the Bloomsbury Group. Woolf travels with Adrian to Portugal and Spain. The Stephens visit Cornwall for the first time since their mother’s death.

  Revolution in Russia.

  Albert Einstein, Special Theory of Relativity; E. M. Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread; Sigmund Freud, Essays in the Theory of Sexuality; Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth; Oscar Wilde, De Profundis.

  1906

  The Stephens travel to Greece. Vanessa and Thoby fall ill. Thoby dies November 20; on November 22, Vanessa agrees to marry Clive Bell.

  Deaths of Paul Cézanne (b. 1839) and Henrik Ibsen (b. 1828). Samuel Beckett born (d. 1989).

  1907

  Woolf moves with her brother Adrian to Fitzroy Square. Vanessa marries Clive Bell.

  First Cubist exhibition in Paris. W. H. Auden born (d. 1973).

  Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent; E. M. Forster, The Longest Journey; Edmund Gosse, Father and Son; Pablo Picasso, Demoiselles d’Avignon.

  1908

  Birth of Vanessa Bell’s first child, Julian. Woolf travels to Italy wi
th Vanessa and Clive Bell.

  Herbert Asquith becomes prime minister.

  E. M. Forster, A Room with a View; Gertrude Stein, Three Lives.

  1909

  Woolf receives a legacy of £2,500 on the death of her Quaker aunt, Caroline Emelia Stephen. Lytton Strachey proposes marriage to Woolf, but they both quickly realize this would be a mistake. Woolf meets Lady Ottoline Morrell for the first time. She travels to the Wagner festival in Bayreuth.

  Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George (1863–1945) introduces a “People’s Budget,” taxing wealth to pay for social reforms. A constitutional crisis ensues when the House of Lords rejects it. Death of George Meredith (b. 1828).

  Filippo Marinetti, “The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism”; Henri Matisse, Dance.

  1910

  Woolf participates in the Dreadnought Hoax. She volunteers for the cause of women’s suffrage. Birth of Vanessa Bell’s second child, Quentin (d. 1996).

  First Post-Impressionist Exhibition (“Manet and the Post-Impressionists”) organized by Roger Fry (1866–1934) at the Grafton Galleries in London. Edward VII dies May 6. George V becomes king. Death of Leo Tolstoy (b. 1828).

  E. M. Forster, Howards End; Igor Stravinsky, The Firebird.

  1911

  Woolf rents Little Talland House in Sussex. Leonard Woolf returns from Ceylon; in November, he, Adrian Stephen, John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), Woolf, and Duncan Grant (1885–1978) share a house together at Brunswick Square in London.

  Ernest Rutherford makes first model of atomic structure.

  Rupert Brooke, Poems; Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes; D. H. Lawrence, The White Peacock; Katherine Mansfield, In a German Pension; Ezra Pound, Canzoni; Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome.

  1912

  Woolf leases Asheham House in Sussex. Marries Leonard on August 10; they move to Clifford’s Inn, London.

  Captain Robert Scott’s expedition reaches the South Pole, but he and his companions die on the return journey. The Titanic sinks. Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition, for which Leonard Woolf serves as secretary.

  Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase; Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art; Thomas Mann, Death in Venice; George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion.

  1913

  The Voyage Out manuscript delivered to Gerald Duckworth. Woolf enters a nursing home in July; in September, she attempts suicide.

  Roger Fry founds the Omega Workshops.

  Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo; D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers; Marcel Proust, Du côté de chez Swann; Igor Stravinsky, Le Sacre du printemps.

  1914

  Leonard Woolf, The Wise Virgins; he reviews Freud’s The Psychopathology of Everyday Life.

  World War I (“The Great War”) begins in August. Home Rule Bill for Ireland passed.

  Clive Bell, Art; James Joyce, Dubliners; Wyndham Lewis et al., “Vorticist Manifesto” (in BLAST); Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons.

  1915

  The Voyage Out, Woolf’s first novel, published by Duckworth. In April the Woolfs move to Hogarth House in Richmond. Woolf begins again to keep a regular diary.

  First Zeppelin attack on London. Death of Rupert Brooke (b. 1887).

  Joseph Conrad, Victory; Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier; D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow; Dorothy Richardson, Pointed Roofs.

  1916

  Woolf discovers Charleston, where her sister, Vanessa (no longer living with her husband, Clive), moves in October with her sons, Julian and Quentin, and Duncan Grant (with whom she is in love) and David Garnett (with whom Duncan is in love).

  Easter Rising in Dublin. Death of Henry James (b. 1843).

  Albert Einstein, General Theory of Relativity; James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; Dorothy Richardson, Backwater.

  1917

  The Hogarth Press established by Leonard and Virginia Woolf in Richmond. Their first publication is their own Two Stories, with woodcuts by Dora Carrington (1893–1932).

  Russian Bolshevik Revolution destroys the rule of the czar. The United States enters the European war.

  T. S. Eliot, Prufrock and Other Observations; Sigmund Freud, Introduction to Psychoanalysis; Carl Jung, The Unconscious; Dorothy Richardson, Honeycomb; W B. Yeats, The Wild Swans at Coole.

  1918

  Woolf meets T. S. Eliot (1888–1965). Harriet Shaw Weaver comes to tea with the manuscript of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant’s daughter, Angelica Garnett, born; her paternity is kept secret from all but a very few intimates.

  Armistice signed November n; Parliamentary Reform Act gives votes in Britain to women of thirty and older and to all men.

  G. M. Hopkins, Poems; James Joyce, Exiles; Katherine Mansfield, Prelude (Hogarth Press); Marcel Proust, À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs; Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians; Rebecca West, The Return of the Soldier.

  1919

  The Woolfs buy Monk’s House in Sussex. Woolf’s second novel, Night and Day, is published by Duckworth. Her essay “Modern Novels” (republished in 1925 as “Modern Fiction”) appears in the Times Literary Supplement; Kew Gardens published by Hogarth Press.

  Bauhaus founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar. Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act opens many professions and public offices to women. Election of first woman member of Parliament, Nancy Astor. Treaty of Versailles imposes harsh conditions on postwar Germany, opposed by John Maynard Keynes, who writes The Economic Consequences of the Peace. League of Nations created.

  T. S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” Poems; Dorothy Richardson, The Tunnel, Interim; Robert Wiene, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (film).

  1920

  The Memoir Club, comprising thirteen original members of the Bloomsbury Group, meets for the first time. The Voyage Out and Night and Day are published in the United States by George H. Doran.

  Mohandas Gandhi initiates mass passive resistance against British rule in India.

  T. S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood; Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle; Roger Fry, Vision and Design; D. H. Lawrence, Women in Love; Katherine Mansfield, Bliss and Other Stories; Ezra Pound, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley; Marcel Proust, Le Côté de Guermantes I; Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence.

  1921

  Woolf’s short story collection Monday or Tuesday published by Hogarth Press, which will from this time publish all her books in England. The book is also published in the United States by Harcourt Brace, which from now on is her American publisher. Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow; Pablo Picasso, Three Musicians; Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author; Marcel Proust, Le Côté de Guermantes II, Sodome et Gomorrhe I; Dorothy Richardson, Deadlock; Lytton Strachey, Queen Victoria.

  1922

  Jacob’s Room published. Woolf meets Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962) for the first time.

  Bonar Law elected prime minister. Mussolini comes to power in Italy. Irish Free State established. British Broadcasting Company (BBC) formed. Discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb in Egypt. Death of Marcel Proust (b. 1871).

  T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land; James Joyce, Ulysses; Katherine Mansfield, The Garden Party; Marcel Proust, Sodome et Gomorrhe II; Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

  1923

  The Woolfs travel to Spain, stopping in Paris on the way home. Hogarth Press publishes The Waste Land.

  Stanley Baldwin succeeds Bonar Law as prime minister. Death of Katherine Mansfield (b. 1888).

  Mina Loy, Lunar Baedeker; Marcel Proust, La Prisonnière; Dorothy Richardson, Revolving Lights; Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies.

  1924

  The Woolfs move to Tavistock Square. Woolf lectures on “Character in Fiction” to the Heretics Society at Cambridge University.

  The Labour Party takes office for the first time under the leadership of Ramsay MacDonald but is voted out within the year. Death of Joseph Conrad (b. 1857).

  E. M. Forster, A Passage to India; Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain.

  1925

  M
rs. Dalloway and The Common Reader published. Woolf stays with Vita Sackville-West at her house, Long Barn, for the first time.

  Nancy Cunard, Parallax; F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time; Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf; Franz Kafka, The Trial; Alain Locke, ed., The New Negro; Marcel Proust, Albertine disparue; Dorothy Richardson, The Trap; Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans.

  1926

  Woolf lectures on “How Should One Read a Book?” at Hayes Court School. “Cinema” published in Arts (New York), “Impassioned Prose” in Times Literary Supplement, and “On Being Ill” in New Criterion. Meets Gertrude Stein (1874–1946).

  The General Strike in support of mine workers in England lasts nearly two weeks.

  Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises; Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues; Franz Kafka, The Castle; A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh.

  1927

  To the Lighthouse, “The Art of Fiction,” “Poetry, Fiction and the Future,” and “Street Haunting” published. The Woolfs travel with Vita Sackville-West and her husband, Harold Nicolson, to Yorkshire to see the total eclipse of the sun. They buy their first car.

  Charles Lindbergh flies the Atlantic solo.

  E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel; Ernest Hemingway, Men without Women; Franz Kafka, Amerika; Marcel Proust, Le Temps retrouvé; Gertrude Stein, Four Saints in Three Acts.

  1928

  Orlando: A Biography published. In October, Woolf delivers two lectures at Cambridge on which she will base A Room of One’s Own. Femina-Vie Heureuse prize awarded to To the Lighthouse.

  The Equal Franchise Act gives the vote to all women over twenty-one. Sound films introduced. Death of Thomas Hardy (b. 1840).