Customer Reviews

Freshwater: A Comedy

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Woolf's only play is a farce about her great-aunt, Julia Cameron, a famous Victorian photographer. The edition with drawings by Edward Gorey is marvelous and succinct. I am not sure I got all the references nor the inside humor (and it all seems like one big private joke [this play was intended for private enjoyment after all]), so I am not as moved as I usually am by Woolf's work, and yet it has a sort of magic and wit. Overall it's a welcome addition to one's collection of Woolf or Gorey, even if it is nearly inaccessible to the layman.

For anyone who enjoys Virginia Woolf, this play is a great find. Anyone who is involved in Women Studies, Photography, or Humanities needs to add this book to their bookshelf. Freshwater: A Comedy connects Virginia Woolf with her aunt, photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. My suggestion is pick up any book on Julia Margaret Cameron to get the full effect of the eccentricies and fobiles of the wealthy and famous of the 1900's.

As I live in Freshwater I thought it would be facinating to see what the antics of the locals was like. Very funny, and book is in perfectly good condition...

This is the only known surviving play by Woolf. Created for an informal gathering of friends, she makes fun of artistic pretensions. This edition also includes a helpful introduction and an early draft of the play. It is best read aloud, with some advance explanation to those who participate or listen. Two droll couples provide much of the humor: photographer Julia Cameron and her philosopher husband, along with actress Ellen Terry and her sculptor husband. Tennyson also appears. Act II, where Terry meets a young sailor, is rather dull, apart from the Porpoise. A must for Bloomsbury fanatics, but of little interest to general readers.

FRESHWATER is Virginia Woolf's one and only play. There are two versions of it, dating from 1923 and 1935. Both are included in this volume. It was performed on January 18, 1935, at one of the theatrical evenings that characterized Bloomsbury parties. The "actors" at that first performance included Leonard Woolf (Virginia's husband), Vanessa Bell (her sister), Adrian Stephen (her brother), Duncan Grant (Vanessa's lover), and Angelica Bell (illegitimate daughter of Vanessa and Duncan Grant).

The play is a send-up of Virginia Woolf's great-aunt Julia Margaret Cameron (the Victorian photographer) and her coterie, which included the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson. The setting is the Cameron estate at Freshwater Bay on the Isle of Wight, circa 1875. The play is pure froth. Though I missed the point of many of the jokes and jests, I could still tell that the humor tended to the intellectual slapstick, with a dose of the risqué. It provided me with a different side of Virginia Woolf, whom I previously knew primarily from "To the Lighthouse".

My guess is that the audience for this is pretty much limited to dedicated fans of Virginia Woolf or scholars of Bloomsbury. Casual fans can safely give it a pass.

I stumbled upon this book while looking for Edward Gorey illustrations and have since bought two to give as gifts! Freshwater gives the reader insight into Virginia's life, humor, times, and friends. An amusing, quick read that makes you want to get a group of people together to act it out.