Virginia Woolf [Paperback]

Hermione Lee (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 5, 1999

"A majestic literary biography, a truly new, surprisingly fresh portrait. --
Newsday

A New York Times Book Review  Editors' Choice
National Book Critics Circle Award finalist

"A biography wholly worthy of the brilliant woman it chronicles. . . . It rediscovers Virginia Woolf afresh."  
--The Philadelphia Inquirer
            
While Virginia Woolf--one of our century's most brilliant and mercurial writers--has had no shortage of biographers, none has seemed as naturally suited to the task as Hermione Lee. Subscribing to Virginia Woolf's own belief in the fluidity and elusiveness of identity, Lee comes at her subject from a multitude of perspectives, producing a richly layered portrait of the writer and the woman that leaves all of her complexities and contradictions intact.  Such issues as sexual abuse, mental illness, and suicide are brought into balance with the immensity of her literary achievement, her heroic commitment to her work, her generosity and wit,  and her sanity and strength.

It is not often that biography offers the satisfactions of great fiction--but this is clearly what Hermione Lee has achieved. Accessible, intelligent, and deeply pleasurable to read, her Virginia Woolf will undoubtedly take its place as the standard biography for years to come.

"One of the most impressive biographies of the decade: moving, eloquent, powerful as both literary and social history."  
--Financial Times

"The most distinguished study of Woolf yet."  --The New Republic

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Woolf's story is reformulated by each generation," writes Hermione Lee, a professor of English literature. But her richly human portrait, so respectful of the complexities of her subject's life, seems unlikely to be surpassed. Lee extricates Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) from clichés about madness and modernism to reveal a vigorous artist whose work is politically probing as well as psychologically delicate. She makes brilliant use of the formidable Woolf archives to let the writer speak directly to us, then comments shrewdly on her words' hidden significances. Biographies don't get much better than this. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Before dismissing this new biography as just another in a long line of familar material, one would do well to stop and take in it. Lee (English, Univ. of York, England) has succeeded in presenting a different side of Woolf somewhat overlooked in previous studies. Aspects of Woolf's personal life like her childhood abuse by her stepbrother and her stormy family life are already well documented (see Louise DeSalvo's Virginia Woolf, Ballantine, 1990, and Panthea Reid's Art and Affection, LJ 9/15/96, respectively); and literary studies abound (see James King's Virginia Woolf, LJ 4/1/95, and Lyndall Gordon's Virginia Woolf, Norton, 1993). By making use of Woolf's extensive correspondence, diaries, and works, Lee strives to present her not as a fragile, eccentric victim, as has been done often, but as a complex, sometimes troubled, yet brilliant artist who overcame much to accomplish what she did. What results is a biography that is part social history, part literary analysis, and overall a fuller picture of Woolf. Lee's eye for detail allows us to get closer than ever to knowing who she was. While the subject may not be new, this biography is well worth a close reading.
-?Ronald Ratliff, Chapman H.S. Lib., Kansas
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 944 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (October 5, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375701362
• ISBN-13: 978-0375701368
• Product Dimensions: 1.9 x 5.8 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #142,568 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 52 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The best so far December 17, 1999

By rilir

Format:Paperback

Probably the best bio of Woolf we are likely to see for some time. Lee has succeeded brilliantly and gracefully in that most elusive and troublesome task of capturing the "spirit" of another human being and then conveying that without simplification or reduction. What is most moving is that Lee allows Woolf her complexity and contradictions, her courage and cowardice, her generosity and meaness, without indulging in a sort of inconoclastic glee in smashing received images of Woolf as victim or feminist icon (or any other of the several and various "Woolfs" to be found these days.) Lee's bio is a stunning feat of sympathetic imagination and rational scholarship which ranks with the other "best" bio of the last 20 years or so, Deirdre Bair's marvelous and beautiful "Simone de Beauvoir." I am grateful to both of these writers.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars best bio to date on woolf December 13, 1997

By [e-mail]

Format:Hardcover

just a few words about this book. I have been studying the works and life of Woolf since the early '70's and this bio by Hermoine Lee is by far the most comprehensive and for my money 'honest'. The hagiography is over. Now we are getting to the bones of Woolf at last. The 'madness', as we always suspected is not as easily explained away from a clinical aspect and in her book Lee deals with an overall composite of the traumas of Woolfs early life and subsequent stresses. Leonard woolf too becomes more real and his role in the shaping of Woolfs inner and outer life is seen more clearly. The book humanises them both,. Not always a comfortable feeling for the reader but for the serious student of the writer and the woman,this book must be best yet. There will always be something beguiling about a woman writer who lives life dangerously and dies by her own hand, especially for other women writers.You may not 'like' Woolf the woman after reading this book but you will come so much closer to understanding what drove her to her greatness, what drove her 'madness and subsequently what led her to that long walk one afternoon down to the river.

33 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Exhaustively researched, crisply written, judicious December 5, 2001

By Eric Krupin

Format:Paperback

Of the many literary biographies I've read, only Peter Ackroyd's "Dickens" seems to me as "definitive" as Ms. Lee's terrifically compelling book. One finishes it with the sense, however illusory (see Janet Malcolm's extraordinary "The Silent Woman" for a convincing argument that it must be), that the Virginia Woolf found in its pages is essentially identical to the actual woman who lived and wrote and died. Anyone with even a slight interest in her must consider this book essential reading. I found it a real page-turner throughout its considerable length despite being unconvinced of Woolf's literary eminence (except for her sparkling correspondence) and finding her character unattractive (i.e. snobbish, frigid, a false friend, etc.) even by the usual standard for writers.