Three Guineas [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Virginia Woolf (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2001

This prestigious new edition of the most controversial of Woolf's works includes an illuminating introduction and full annotations by the editor.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Like Virginia Woolf's better known A Room of One's Own, Three Guineas is still timely and well worth the effort required to read it. In this book-length essay, an English writer responds to a letter - from a society for preventing war and protecting culture and intellectual liberty - which asks "How in your opinion are we to prevent war?" and requests a one guinea donation. Her response examines this and two similar requests, one from a women's college building fund, and the other from a society promoting the employment of professional women. Each request for a guinea is seriously and thoroughly considered by questioning, in detail, why each of the needs exists: Why doesn't the English government support education for women? Why are women in England barred from professional work? And why is World War II imminent? With scathing humor, boundless dignity, and engaging detail, Virginia Woolf finds the answers to all three questions in the same source: "...we can best help you to prevent war not by repeating your words and following your methods but by finding new words and creating new methods... to assert 'the rights of all - all men and women - to the respect in their persons of the great principles of Justice and Equality and Liberty.'" (500 Great Books by Women; review by Jesse Larsen ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Publisher

7 1-hour cassettes --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 273 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0783893817
• ISBN-13: 978-0783893815
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,828,942 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It All Boils Down To Money!, February 8, 2005

By 

V. Marshall (North Fork, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Three Guineas (Paperback)

Early feminism begins to emerge in this essay written by Virginia Woolf in 1938 as a follow up to her wonderful book "A Room of One's Own."

Woolf received requests for three guineas from a women's college, from a society for promoting professional women and finally from a group requesting the prevention of war. This essay is Woolf's answer to those requests. While it is extraordinarily cumbersome to read the bottom line suggests that a society which promotes only one aspect of itself and suffocates anything else will never be advanced enough to protect its own culture and intellect from revolutions and wars. And because the idea of fighting rests in the very aspect so highly promoted (male dominated society) all of the laws and practices contain this strife and will until other parts of society are allowed a fair voice. The interesting concept is how little society has advanced from this original idea and the strife continues to be a factor today. Woolf suggests war exists as a profession and an act that offers "happiness and excitement" for the very society it falls under. In fact she goes as far to suggest that men would deteriorate without the outlet of war to contend with. Woolf discusses patriotism as a purely male act because of the fact that women simply cannot be patriots in a culture that suffocates their voices and refuses to educate them (remember this is 1938). The disturbing thought is that women are now able to vote, work and fight in wars but our culture remains basically the same with white males in domination. How slow we are to advance!

Virginia Woolf believed that war could only be prevented through an educational system that stopped the glamorization of it and instead taught the inhumanity of the act. She found that poor educational systems actually taught better because they allowed art and creative processes to flow rather than the pomp and circumstance of wealth and the art of dominating, killing and capital acquirements. Sadly one of Woolf's most profound ideas applies today, "There we have an embryo the creature, Dictator as we call him when he is Italian or German, who believes that he has the right, whether given by God, Nature, sex or race is immaterial, to dictate to other human beings how they shall live; what they shall do." From a society of slavery, racism and suffering emerges a great savior promoting freedom? It seems an oxymoron does it not? Woolf continues, "And what right have we, Sir, to trumpet our ideas of freedom and justice to other countries when we can shake out from our most respectable newspapers any day of the week eggs like these?" The futurism of Woolf is astounding in this book as she finally suggests that women be labeled "outside" society so that her country is the entire world and her patriotism allowed to be the same. In a visionary profoundness Woolf manages to find an answer towards true freedom outside of the fascination of a few guineas.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A MARVELOUS DISCUSSION OF "GOALS", September 23, 2011

By 

Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Three guineas (Harbinger book)

Adeline Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century. In this book, she answers three requests for donation of a guinea: from a women's college building fund; from a society for professional women; and from a group which aims to prevent war, as well as "protect culture; and intellectual liberty."

Here are some quotations from the book:

"Our class is the weakest of all the classes in the state. We have no weapon with which to enforce our will." (Pg. 13)
"...our new weapon, the influence which the educated man's daughter can exert now that she is able to earn her own living." (Pg. 17)
"...in the present state of things the most effective way in which we can help you through education to prevent war is to subscribe as generously as possible to the colleges for the daughters of educated men." (Pg. 37)
"The questions that we have to ask and to answer about that procession during this moment of transition are so important they they may well change the lives of all men and women for ever. For we have to ask ourselves, here and now, do we wish to join that procession? Above all, where is it leading us, the procession of educated men?" (Pg. 62)
"She will find that she has no good reason to ask her brother to fight on her behalf to protect 'our' country. 'Our country,' she will say, 'throughout the greater part of our history has treated me as a slave; it has denied me an education or any share in its possessions.'" (Pg. 108)
"...we can best help you to prevent war not by repeating your words and following your methods but by finding new words and creating new methods. We can best help you to prevent war not by joining your society but by remaining outside your society but in co-operation with your aim." (Pg. 143)

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Perfect, But Interesting and Still Relevant, September 20, 2004

By 

Abigail Nussbaum (Israel) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Three Guineas (Paperback)

If you've come in search of more Virginia Woolf essays after being blown away by A Room of One's Own, be warned - Three Guineas isn't as good as that earlier, astonishing essay. Nevertheless, a second-tier Virginia Woolf essay is still a Virginia Woolf essay, which is to say, clever, funny and dangerously sharp.

In Three Guineas, Woolf discusses three letters, each requesting a donation of a guinea, one from a society seeking to prevent war, one from a society promoting the employment of professional women and one from the building fund of a women's college. All worthy goals, and anyone else might have been satisfied to send them each a guinea and be done with it. Woolf, on the other hand, uses these three requests to launch a discussion about women's role in society and the effect that educated, professional women can and should have on it.

As in A Room of One's Own, some of what Woolf says is obvious or outdated. What's staggering, however, is how many of her observations remain fresh and relevant. Even more staggering is how accurately she predicts the changes that have taken place since society began making a real place for women - changes in society, but also changes in women. Although I knew much of what Woolf was saying, I doubt that I had ever seen these thoughts so clearly and intelligently formulated. As an added bonus, Three Guineas provides a brief but fascinating glimpse into the history of the suffrage movement (and its opposition) in England.

It is easy to guess Three Guineas' flaws. It is too long, too detailed, and ultimately not as revelatory and exciting as A Room of One's Own. It is, however, important to anyone interested in thinking about women's place in society, and the affect that each has on the other. Along with A Room of One's Own, it should be required reading for young women who (like myself) take their rights and freedom for granted.