Thrown to the Woolfs

Fascinating talk at the National Portrait Gallery given by Virginia Nicholson, the great niece of Virginian Woolf, talking about the effect of having such an illustrious ancestor.

The talk mainly looked at how Virginia Nicholson’s parents had written the first biography of Woolf and her mother had then gone on to edit the Woolf diaries. It was a wonderful tale of a massive piece of research and the effect this has on a family. I loved the description of her mother’s meticulous filing systems and of the takeover of one room with paper when the index of the biography was being compiled.

I have often heard Virginian Nicholson speak at Charleston, as I am a friend there and all eventer at the literary festival there, but I was impressed at how open she was in this talk about growing up with this legacy. I found the talk quite moving.

 

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