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Standard Disclaimer:
This is a brief discussion of Virginia Woolf and, of course, of some speculative-fiction books by Woolf.
This discussion and list does not necessarily include every book by Woolf: it includes only those books that I both know and like. Just as with the author list itself, omission of a particular item may mean I didn’t think highly enough of the omitted item, or it may simply mean that I have not yet sufficient familiarity with it. (In a very few cases, I have listed some books merely on the strength of my opinion of the author: all such books are clearly marked below, as throughout these lists, with a hash mark (#) before the title so you know what’s what.)
I don’t pretend that this discussion is a deep analysis. My intent is no more than to give you a rough idea of what kinds of tales Woolf tells, how those tales are usually told, and what makes them and Woolf worthy; in sum, to help you rank Virginia Woolf (and the works by Woolf listed here) on your personal literary “to do” list.
Regrettably, I have not yet had an opportunity to write an essay on this author, but the “Other Resources” section below will lead you to some information about the “Notable Books” listed farther down this page.
For a meta-page of links, there’s the Virginia Woolf Online Literary Criticism Collection at the Internet Public Library, a good jumping-off place. Of noteworthy dedicated individual sites, one is the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain; another is the International Virginia Woolf Society. There is also a useful Virginia Woolf page at The Author’s Calendar. There is a Woolf chronology at “Virginia Woolf, her life and works” [archived copy], and another Woolf biography at the Spartacus Educational site [archived copy].
As to listing actual criticism and appreciation, the heavy lifting has again already been done, and I point you to the results at the Virginia Woolf page at the Literary History web site, where you can find links to (as I write) 72 selected web pages assessing Woolf’s work.
Beyond that, some other resources include “The Voyage In” by Claudia Roth Pierpont in The New York Times Magazine [archived copy], and “Virginia Woolf, Orlando: A Biography (1928)”, a course study guide from C.U.N.Y. [archived copy]
“Of all the biographies of Woolf, the most authoritative are probably Quentin Bell’s and Hermione Lee’s.”
— Lisa Low, 2001 [archived copy]
There are many, many books on Woolf and her art; I am not equipped to judge their merits and demerits, but here are enough possibilities to be going on with:
Virginia Woolf; a Biography by Quentin Bell
Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee
Virginia Woolf A to Z: A Comprehensive Reference for Students, Teachers, and Common Readers to Her Life, Work, and Critical Reception by Mark Hussey
The Cambridge Introduction to Virginia Woolf by Jane Goldman
The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf edited by Sue Roe and Susan Sellers (a good companion piece to the book above)
The Measure of Life: Virginia Woolf’s Last Years by Herbert Marder
Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work by Louise Desalvo
Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life by Julia Briggs
My Madness Saved Me: The Madness and Marriage of Virginia Woolf by Thomas Szasz
Virginia Woolf and Trauma: Embodied Texts edited by Suzette Henke and David Eberly
The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf edited by Louise DeSalvo and Mitchell A. Leaska [scarce and expensive]
Paper Darts: the Illustrated Letters of Viginia Woolf edited by Frances Spalding
The Flight of the Mind: Virginia Woolf’s Art and Manic-Depressive Illness by Thomas Caramagno
Woolf Across Cultures edited by Natalya Reinhold
Imagining Virginia Woolf: An Experiment in Critical Biography by Maria DiBattista
Virginia Woolf and the Real World by Alex Zwerdling
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