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1-1-2000 Canonicity and Commercialization in Woolf 's Uniform Edition John K. Young Marshall University, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Young, John K. “Canonicity and Commercialization in Woolf’s Uniform Edition.” In Proceedings of the 9th Annual Virginia Woolf Conference: Virginia Woolf Turning the Centuries, eds. Bonnie Kime Scott nda Ann Ardis (Pace University Press, 2000): 236-243.

This Conference Proceeding is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Marshall Digital Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Faculty Research by an authorized administrator of Marshall Digital Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. VIRGINIA WOOLF: TURNING THE CENTURIES

Selected Papers From the Ninth Annual Conference on Vuginia Woolf

University of Delaware June 10-13, 1999

Edited b)' Ann Ardis & Bonnie Kirne Scott

New York Pace University Press 2000 Pressing the Public Sphere Young

can never be "authentic" objects in his sense. But while books may exemplify Willis,J. H., Jr. Leonard and VirginiaPublishers: IVooifas TheHoganh Pnss, 1917- 41. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 1992. Benjamin's maxim that "the work of an reproduced becomes the work of an Woolf, Virginia. Collected Essays. Vol. 2 Ed. Leonard Woolf. London: Hogarth, designed for reproducibility" (224), publishers still manufacture some markof 1967. originality in first. and especially limited, editions.2 A book that appears in 1925. --. Tire CommonReader: FirstSeries. Ed. Andrew McNeillie. New York; "only" 100copies, for example, creates in its consumers a sense of authentici­ Harcourt, 1984. ty, if on a smaller scale than other an objects. Since allWoolf's books from --. The ConurwnSecond Reader: Series. 1932. Ed.Andrew McNe illie. New York: Harcourt,1986. Jacob'sRoom on bore the line "Publishedby Leonard & VirginiaWoolf at the -- . TheDiary of VLf8inia \i'Hogarth Press," by investigating theWoolfs' publishing decisions we can also Harcourt, 1977-84. interpret her texts' material codes. The Essays of VLf8iniavo \i'The Voyage Out, Jacob'sRoom, Mrs Dalloway, and The CommonReader) and A Roomof One's This paper considers VirginiaWoolf the publisher alongside Virginia Own. Perhaps surprisingly (from our contemporary perspective), the catalog Woolf the author. While the Hogarth Press bas long been known for making lists the reprint series first. The Uniform Edition appeared with this blurb Woolf "the only woman in England free to write what I like," it alsomade her (probably written by Woolf hersel£)3: "The Hogarth Pressbegins this autumn free to be published as she liked. Hogarth,Jane Marcus argues,"gave Woolf a the publication of a cheap uniform edition, of small and convenient size, of the way of negotiating the terms of literary publicity, and a space somewhere works of Virginia Woolf. Of the four volumes now published Jacob's Room between the private, the coterie, and the public sphere" (144-5). I will exam­ and MrsDalloway have been out of print for some time." At 5s. each, the ine one such negotiation, the Uniform Edition of Woolf's works, a series Uniform Editions were the same price as th.e regular first edition of Room, a designed to capitalize on her growing recognition and markelability. Once the reduction designed in response, we can assume, to that book's £2 2s. special Woolfs had become, in Leonard's words, "more or less ordinary publishers" edition,limited to 100 copies and signed by the author. (Rosenbaum, 7), they began marketing their books in "more or lessordinary" In this catalog, we see Hogarth's twin engines of literary commodifi­ ways,and includedthese a construction ofWoolf through the Uniform Edition cation at work: the Uniform Edition, frequently advertised as "New and as both canonical and commercial, a crucial combination, I will conclude, for Cheap," capitalizes on Woolf's growing marketability and recognition to modernist women writers.' encourage theconsumption and collection of all her works. At the same time, Focusing on the publishing dynamics of Woolf's books offers a more the limitededition of Room motivates a differentconsumer response, the desire fully historicized portrait of her career. I address the Uniform Edition through to own a specialliterary object, signed by the author herself. By no smaU coin­ what George Bomstein calls the '"'textual aura" (226), a version of Walter cidence, 1929 was Woolf's second-most profitable year as an author,earning Benjamin's aura updated to include the notions of textual materiality empha­ her nearly £3000 (or enough for six rooms of her own), and surpassed only sized by Jerome McGann and Peter Shillingsburg. Reproductions which slightly by the enormous success of The Years (Lee, 550). Woolf's new read­ ignore a book's textual aura, Bornstein demonstrates,"tend to set the text free ers, who had discovered her in To rhe Ughrlzouse or in the very popular from its original time and place, locating it in our own principally as an aes­ Orlando, could now easily and inexpensively begin retracing their steps thetic rather than historic.ized object''(225). There is a certain irony in apply­ through herca reer. Asthe ca1alognotes, Jacob :r Roomand Mrs. Dalloway, the ing Benjamin's original notion of aura to mechanically printed books, which two mostdesirable entries so far, were then out of print, thus making them par-

237 236 Young Pressing the PublicSphere

ticularly appealing to readerswho had comelately to Woolfs work. By issu­ together alone for the longestperiod of time in the novel. It is the one glimpse ing the Uniform Editions as part of an expanding set-the back jacket for each provided of the kind of life they might have shared had Rachel lived long publication tists both thosetitles already published in the series and those that enough to become Terence's wife" (344). Rachel and Terence agree to call were "In Preparation"-Hogarth fosters its consumers' desire to own an entire each other by their first names and discuss the gendered division of societal collection. roles, including Rachel's anxiety over prostitution. This version of Chapter "VuginiaWoolf" the brandname thus becomeslegible as both canon­ XVI.as several critics have noted,is a more overtly feminist one in contrast to ically andcommercially significant: aesthetically important enough to merit a the more muted novel which crossed the Atlantic. "permanentedition" (LA 68) as Woolf calledit, and popularenough to sell well In 1929, Hogarth bought bothof sets sheets from Duckworth and sold in both limited and "cheap" editions. This authorial image stands in marked two different copies of the novel: first in its American version as a "Third contrast to the one Woolf cultivates in A Room of One'sOwn, her other publi­ Impression," and then with the cut sections restored for the Uniform Edition, cationof 1929. 1bere, Woolf portrays herself in an ongoing dialogue with her set from the sheets of the original Duckworthpublication and tisted as a "New audience, the opposite version of textual authority from CharlesLamb's image Edition" on the copyright page. According to Woolf bibliographer B. J. of Milton. As Christine Froula concludes, texts like Room "actively invest Kirkpatrick there were apparently 500 copies available of the 'Third authority in the audiences they both mirror and hail into being"(525). But the Impression"(and 100 sold), compared to 3200 copies published for the "New implicit claim of the Uniform Edition shifts its author back into a more Edition" (6). This switch has been the source of some confusion among Woolf Miltonic mode: Woolf represents herself hereas thekind of stable authority for scholars; Willis, for example, finds it "curious" that "the text so care fully whom Lamb could think "changing the words in that poem seemed to him a reworked by Woolf was never reprinted by the Hogarth Press" (155). In kind of sacrilege" (AROO 1). Just as Woolf knows Milton's poem and Hogarth's 1990 edition, Elizabeth Heine speculates that Woolf may have Thackeray's novels in their public, stable forms, so too can her audience now "decided that thechanges she had made for the American edition ... reflected engage a uniform version of her texts. Readers interested in TheVoyage OuJ, not what she hadacc omplished in publishing the novel in 1915, but the rejec­ for example, which had appeared in different English and American editions, tion of everyday detail and thedevelopment of new formswith which she was now have one text stamped by the authorand publisheras the standard edition. experimenting five years later"(400 ). Whereas Milton's early versions of Lycidas were available only to the By examining the textual aura of the Uniform Voyage, we can fmd Oxbridge library's male visitors, the competing versions of Voyage were both, other explanations for Woolfs decision in the crucial differencebetween pub­ albeit briefly, in circulation from the Hogarth Press, with the Uniform Edition lishing her first novel with her abusive half-brother in 1915 and republishing it identifiedas the preferred, or "permanent," version.(I will returnto this exam­ as the best-knownbest-selling and author of her own firm in1929. 1be back ple below.) The Woolfof the Uniform Editions thus does not tell her audience jacket, withits List of those volumes "AlreadyPublished" and "In Preparation," "call me Mary Beton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael or by any name you establishes Woolfs growing and self-made canon. Asa Hogarth edition of the please--it is not a maner of any imponance" (AROO 5), because she must novel, the Uniform Voyage thus provides Woolf the opportunity to re-make her remain recognizable as "Virginia Woolf" the brand-name. Once Room Duckworth books. By censoring her more daring feminist statements, Woolf appearedin the Uniform series, in 1930, its Linguistic leanings toward feminist produced an arguably more commercial version of her fust novel. But at the versions of authority began to intersect with its new bibliographical markings sametime, shereclaimed hertextual authority fromDuckworth's socialpower. of a textual monument. Far from the anonymity dictated to female authors, "She did not want to go on being censored or controlled" by Duckworth, Woolf canonizesherself in theUniform Room as a timeless authorfor ber read­ Hermione Lee writesof the decisionto make Hogarth Woolfs sole British pub­ ers to "think back through" (76). lisher (369). By restoring Voyage's original text for Hogarth's 1929 publica­ TheUniform Edition of The VoyageOut, apparently the only one with tion, Woolf castsaside the Duckworth imprint from her ftrst novel and remakes significantLinguistic differences from previous editions (Willis, 155), presents it on her own terms, as the opening volume in Hogarth's "Collected Edition" a special casefor this kind of authorial refashioning because of its now well­ of her works (03 225). Textual cuts that ntay once have represented both an known t.extual history. In the original edition of Woolf's first novel, published accession to commercial interests and an aversion to Duckworth's textual by Duckworth in 1915, ChapterXVI includes several scenes Woolf cut for its authoritycould now berestored under the sign ofWooLf's own commercial and American publication in 1920. When Duckworth reissued Voyage and Night canonical success. and Day in 1920, and again in 1927, be purchased the sheets from the By re-producing The Voyage OuJ in the Uniform Edition, Woolf moo· American edition, thus keeping the shorter version in circulation. As Louise umentalizes her textual authority in a book thatitself marks as relativelystable A. DeSalvo notes, the original edition "presents Rachel and Terence Hewet and timeless (even if it would not seem sacrilegious to imagine Woolf chang-

238 239 Pressing the Publi& Sphere Young quences of hermarketability, she alsobegan to embrace her economic power, ing the words). Simultaneously, she restores a text which had questioned the for what it meant both as an author and an employer. Writing in April, 1929, gender imbalances of literary and social history. "'Just consider,'" Terence shereflected: "And pe7 ople now dependon us; & I think with pride that7 peo­ tells Rachel in one of the passagesdeleted forthe American edition, '"it's the ple depend, largely,upon my hand writing on a sheetof paper. Thatis of great beginning of the twentieth century and until a few years ago no woman had solace & pride to me. Its not scribbling;its keeping 7 people fedand housed. ever come out by herself and said things at all. 1bereit was going on in the .. they live on my words. They will he feedingwell offWomen & Fictionnext background, for allthose thoosands of years, this curious silent unrepresented year for which I predict some sale (D3 221). Woolf was correct, of course, life"' (200). Inorder to narratethis "unrepresented life," Woolf facedthe per­ about the sales of Women & Fiction under its revised title and abouther exist­ petual feminist choice of working within the established systemor of creating ing commercial status at its publication; afterearning just more than £2000in new structures outside the tradition. Through her publishing practices, Woolf 1929, Woolf was freeto construct herown public image (Downhill, 64). After merged bothoptions, fashioning herself as a commercial and canonical author­ all, as she would conclude in A Room ofOne's Own, "'ntellectual freedom ity. depends upon material things" (108). This merger of canonicity and commercialization is, I conclude, the most feature significant of the Uniform Edition's textual aura. Critical Notes accounts of modernismhave tended to privilege self-consciously high-cultural IThis paper i s panof a larger study. inwhich I aJgUethai modernistwomen writers. who books and their publishing histories, presenting modernism asdistanced from foundlhe greatestpublishers' freedomfrom reinscription of patriarchal traditionsby mainstream audiences rather than in its complex interactions with popularcul­ publishing themsehoes, fashioned their own brand of cultural capital by directly enga�ng relath·ely popular mart:ets. I focus primarily onWoolf and Hogarth and ture and commercialism. This perspective ignores the role of publishers as a Gertrude Stein and the Plain Edition, published by Alice B. Totlas. gateway into literary culture; the absence of almost any women from publish­ 2 Bomstein DOles that, "Although Benjamin himself saw auralhe as ·withering' in the ing power, especially among mainstream presses,special created problems for ageof mechanicalrq>mduction, we may revise Benjamin byemphasiring that.,for lit­ female modernists. For women writers, themar ket was oftenthe only way into erary wods. original mechanical reprodu<:ljons can create theirown aura and that it the canon, so commodifical.ion became the sole available means of establish­ is the earlier auras thatwither under successi\-e rq>mductionsof the worl<. panicu­ larly if the 'work' is thoughtof as identical merely to its (224).words� I concurthat ing textualauthority. ln trastcon to Fredric Jameson's insistencethat "for mod· bootsproduoed special in or limited edllions�rin editionslha1 become rare regard­ ernism, the commodity form signals the vocation not to be a commodity, to less of publishers' intentions-aimfor a diluted sense of Benjamin"s 311ra, as they devise an aesthetic language incapableof offering commodity satisfaction, and mark themsel.-es implicitly as andrarer thus more "authentic" than .-ersions of the resistant to instrumentalization" (16), we can see in Woolrs publishing deci­ same wotk produced in populareditions. sions the blending of commercial appeal with her aesthetic language. ln April 3 "Given thesmall organizationof theHogarth 1'1=," S. P. Rosenbaum surmises of the 1921, while at work on Jacob's Room and gloomy over the slow sales of jac.kevcopy forWoolf's boots."it is reasonable to coocludelha1 these blutbs v.-ere written by the author. And who -.TOCe the copyfor the Hogarth Press's catalogue MondayTuesday, or Woolf mused, "What depresses me is the thought that I announcements of theWoolfs' books? Again these candescriptions beconsidered have ceased to interest people-at the very moment, when, by the help of the aulborial--or quasi-authorial, perhaps, if Leonard wro1ethem with Virginia's press, I thought I was becoming more myself. One does not want an estaJ>. approvaln(22-3). 1beinteraction between Woolf's"outside" and"insiden writingis lished reputation, such as I think I was geuing, as one of our leading female a fruitful area for study. 1be original jacket copy for A Roomof Otu s Own, for novelists" (m 107). Woolf worries that, on the heels of the more convention­ example. statessimply. conditions1be lha1 are favourable to imaginati•·ewort. are discussed, includingthe right relation of thesexes" (\Vomen & Fiction.xli). in whal al novel Nightand Day, she may be lumpedtogether with the "leading female seems a wateringdown of Room"s intemal argument for the popular audience of novelists"-such as Duckworth's best-sellingElinor Glyn, for example-as a booksbop browsers. popular producer of domestic fiction. Hogarth's freedom, by contrast, pro­ • Quored from the collection of the Manuscripts. Archi'-es. and Special Collections duces "that queer, & very pleasant sense, of something which I want to write; officeat theWashington StateUniversity Library. my own point of view. I wonder, though, whether the feeling that Iwrite for s No doubt part of the finaocial success ofderi,·ed theseyears fromthe cheaperprint­ ing coStSof theUniform Editions. As Willis explains. the "inexpensive tradeedition half a dozen instead of 1500 pervenwill this?- make me eccentric,--no, I meantto the pressgreater of ease production. lower reprinlingcoStS. and cenainmar­ think not'' (m 107). a As publisher,Woolf went on to rewrite the connotations keting advantages in lhe attractive, uniformvOlumes" (155-6). Edward L. Bishop of beinga "leading novelist''by constructing an authorial space from which the noresthat the Uniformjackets' hand-drawndesjgns ')>reservethe link with the a\•ant­ marketneed not negatethe canon. As books like tbeUniform Editions auest, garde.(while] the jade-greenthe clothboardswith goldleuering on the spineassert Woolf foundan audience far largerthan half a dozen or even I500, and with it, Wootrs entryinto the literaryestablishment" (58). th.e ability to revise the patriarchal traditions associated with canonical and commercial suCGess. While Woolf remained ambivalent about tbe conse- 241 240 Young Pressing the Public Sphere

6 As Leonard Woolfnotes, was Orlando "the turning-point in Virginia'scareer as asuc­ Froula. Christine. "Modernism, GeDdie Texts and Literary Authority in Virginia cessful OO\'elist� (143). In all, she earned slightly more than £3700 on her books Woolfs Portraits of the Artist as the Audience." The Romanic Review 86 between 1928 and 1929. (1995): s 13-526. 7 On tbeauthor as a brandWernick, name.seeAndrew "Authorship and tbesupplement Heine.Elizabeth. "Virginia Woolf's Revisionsto The \bJage Out.� In The \byageOut:

of promotion." in Whot Is AnAuthor? • eds. Maurice Birioui and Nicola Miller TM DifUJiJn·e CollectedEdition. Ed. Heine. London: HogarthPress, 1990. (Manchesler:University Manchester Press. 1993). Jameson. Fredric. Postmodemism, or, The Culturalf..qgic Late of Capitalism. 8 ln disalssionfoUowing the conferencepanel. Julia Briggssaid Woolfmade other revi­ Durham: Duke University Press, 1991. sions in Uniform textsas well. I hopesoon to collate tbeUniform and later editions, l(jri

CriticalAnlhology, eel Bonnie Kime Scott (Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press. --• 1\bmen& Fiction: The Manuscript Versionsof ARoom of One's Own. Ed.S. P. 1990). Rosenbaum. Oxford: Shalcespeare Head Press. 1992. t2 Rosenbaum describes Glyn's books as "forgettable but immensely popularromantic Zeller.Hans. "A New Approach to theCritical Constitution of LiteraryTexts." Studies novels of passion ontiger-skin (13). rugs" Aftertbe initialstrong sales for TMWm·es in Bibliography28 (1975): 231-264. began to fade,Woolf worriedagain that she"in was danger,ndeed.i of becomingour leadingand noveliSt, withnot tbe highbrowson!� (0449). Woolf'sconcern that she wiU become a "'eading novelist,� like her anxiety about that phrase following tbe receptionNight of andDay, addresses the anxietyof herjoint commercial andintel­ lectualpublic presences.

Works Cited Benjamin,Walter. "The Wortof Art in tbe Ageof Mechanical Reproduction." In llluminatwns. Ed. HannabArendt. New Yori<: Schooken Boolcs,1968. Bishop.Edward L. "From Typographyto Tune:Producing Virginia Woolf." In Vitginia Woolf: Tatsand Contexts. Eds. Betb Rigel Daugherty and Eileen BarretLPace NY: Uni,·ersity Press, 1996. �3. Bomstein,George. "YeatS and Textual Reincarnation: 'When You Are Old' and 'September 1913.'" In TM IconicPage in MIJIIllSCript, Print, and Digital Culture. Eds. Bomstein and Theresa Tinkle. Ann Arbor: University of MichiganPress. 1998.. 223-248. DeSalvo.Louise A. "Woolf'sRevisions for the1920 American and EnglishEditions of TheVoyage Out." Bulletin ofResearch in theHwtUilli zies 82 (1979): 338-366.

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