Virginia Woolf at Home

Virginia Woolf, an innovative writer whose experimental style and lyrical prose ensured her position as one of the most influential of modern novelists, was also firmly anchored in the reality of the houses she lived in and those she visited regularly. Detailed and evocative accounts appear in her letters and diaries, as well as in her fiction, where they appear as backdrops or provide direct inspiration. This book examines 22 Hyde Park Gate, London—where Virginia Woolf was born in 1882; Talland House, St. Ives, Cornwall—the summer home of Virginia’s family until 1895; 46 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, London—the birthplace of the Bloomsbury Group—Virginia lived here from 1904 to 1912; Hogarth House, Richmond, London—where the newly married Woolfs set up home and founded the Hogarth Press; Asheham House, East Sussex—the summer home of the Woolfs, 1912-1919; 52 Tavistock Square, London—a return to Bloomsbury, the heart of London; and Monk’s House, Rodmell, East Sussex—where Virginia lived from 1919 until her death in 1941.

Hilary Macaskill is the author of Agatha Christie at Home, Charles Dickens at Home, and Daphne du Maurier at Home. Cecil Woolf, nephew of Leonard, helped as a boy at the Hogarth Press and started his own publishing company in the 1950s, while living in Leonard's London home.  

Contents 6
Foreword by Cecil Woolf 8
A Victorian Home – 22
The Ideal Childhood – Talland House ‘The best beginning to life conceivable’ 28
Hyde Park Gate ‘A complete model of Victorian society’ 44
London Renewed – 52
‘The Light and the Air’ – Bloomsbury ‘Home at last to our native Bloomsbury’ 72
Marriage and Partnership – Hogarth House ‘This beautiful and loveable house’ 98
A Haunted House – Asheham House ‘The flawless beauty of Asheham’ 112
Tavistock Terrace ‘To walk alone through London is the greatest rest.’ 142
A House of One’s Own – Monk’s House ‘There’s nothing I enjoy more than looking for houses’ 178
The Legacy ‘What cuts the deepest channels in our lives are the different houses in which we live.’ 198
Bibliography 200
Index 208
Acknowledgments