The Measure of Life: Virginia Woolf's Last Years

MARDER, Herbert

ISBN 10: 0801437296 / ISBN 13: 9780801437298

Verlag: Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2000

Beschreibung

A first edition of Herbert Marder's examination of the last years of the life of England's Virginia Woolf (1882-1941). The modernist writer won fame for her novels and essays, but she suffered from depression throughout her life. This work describes in some detail the last ten years of her life, culminating in her suicide in 1941. With black & white photos throughout, depicting people and scenes from her life. With extensive letters, source notes, bibliography and index. --- In tan paper-covered boards backed in maroon cloth, with titling in gilt to spine. Jacket features Gisèle Freund photographic portrait of a morose-looking Virginia Woolf to front cover. --- A clean, bright, newish copy but with tiny bits of white paper clinging to back cover cloth. Jacket in excellent shape and wrapped in removable archival mylar protector.; Tall Octavo - 9 to 10 in. tall; xiii, (2), 418 pages.

Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 84704

Bibliografische Details

• Titel: The Measure of Life: Virginia Woolf's Last Years
• Verlag: Cornell University Press, Ithaca
• Erscheinungsjahr: 2000
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN-10: 0801437296
• ISBN-13: 9780801437298
• Einband: Hardcover
• Auflage: First Edition.
• Zustand: Near Fine
• Zustand des Schutzumschlags: Fine
• Verkäuferkataloge:
  • >>Writers, Writing & Literary Criticism
  • >>Biography, Autobiography, Memoir

Über diesen Titel

Inhaltsangabe

This elegantly written and richly detailed biography tells the story of Virginia Woolf's last ten years, from the creation of her great visionary novel, The Waves, to her suicide in 1941. Herbert Marder looks closely at Woolf's views on totalitarianism and her depictions of Britain under siege to create a remarkable portrait of a mature and renowned writer during a time of rising fascist violence.An awareness of personal danger, Marder says, colored Woolf's actions and consciousness in the years leading up to World War II. She practiced her art with intense dedication and was much admired for her wit and vivacity. But she had previously tried to kill herself, and she asserted her right to die if her manic-depressive illness became intolerable. Waves and water haunted her imagination; visions of drowning recurred in her work. The Measure of Life suggests that Woolf anticipated her suicide, and indeed enacted it symbolically many times before the event. Marder's account of her death emphasizes the importance of her relationship with her doctor and distant cousin, Octavia Wilberforce. Wilberforce's letters about Woolf's last months, including some previously unpublished passages, appear in the appendix.Staying close to the spirit of Woolf's own writing, Marder traces her evolving social consciousness in the 1930s, connecting her growing concern with politics and social history with the facts of her daily life. He stresses her endurance as a working writer, and explores her friendships, her complex relations with servants, and her activities at the Hogarth Press. The Measure of Life illuminates the unspoken quarrels and obscure acts of courage that provide a key, as Woolf herself believed, to the hidden roots of our existence. By letting the reader see events as Virginia Woolf saw them, Marder's compelling narrative captures both her unique comic spirit and her profound seriousness.

This elegantly written and richly detailed biography tells the story of Virginia Woolf's last ten years, from the creation of her great visionary novel, The Waves, to her suicide in 1941. Herbert Marder looks closely at Woolf's views on totalitarianism and her depictions of Britain under siege to create a remarkable portrait of a mature and renowned writer during a time of rising fascist violence.

An awareness of personal danger, Marder says, colored Woolf's actions and consciousness in the years leading up to World War II. She practiced her art with intense dedication and was much admired for her wit and vivacity. But she had previously tried to kill herself, and she asserted her right to die if her manic-depressive illness became intolerable. Waves and water haunted her imagination; visions of drowning recurred in her work.

The Measure of Life suggests that Woolf anticipated her suicide, and indeed enacted it symbolically many times before the event. Marder's account of her death emphasizes the importance of her relationship with her doctor and distant cousin, Octavia Wilberforce. Wilberforce's letters about Woolf's last months, including some previously unpublished passages, appear in the appendix.

Staying close to the spirit of Woolf's own writing, Marder traces her evolving social consciousness in the 1930s, connecting her growing concern with politics and social history with the facts of her daily life. He stresses her endurance as a working writer, and explores her friendships, her complex relations with servants, and her activities at the Hogarth Press. The Measure of Life illuminates the unspoken quarrels and obscure acts of courage that provide a key, as Woolf herself believed, to the hidden roots of our existence. By letting the reader see events as Virginia Woolf saw them, Marder's compelling narrative captures both her unique comic spirit and her profound seriousness.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Herbert Marder was born in Vienna and came to the U.S. as a child, fleeing the Holocaust. He has had a long and sustained interest in Virginia Woolf and published a pioneering work, Feminism and Art: A Study of Virginia Woolf, at the beginning of the current Bloomsbury revival. An emeritus professor of English at the University of Illinois, Marder lives in Champaign, Illinois, and on Monhegan Island, Maine.