1 Number 95 Spring/Summer 2019
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NUMBERVirginia 95 Woolf Miscellany SPRING/SUMMER 2019 Editor’s Introduction: o o o o Elizabeth Willson Gordon has argued, convincingly, The Common Book Collector that an entire sequence of contradictions animates You can access issues of the the marketing of the Hogarth Press from the first. If Virginia and Leonard Woolf were not book Virginia Woolf Miscellany the original intention behind Hogarth Press books collectors, which is to say that theirs was a online on WordPress at was to create affordable and attractive books for working library and they were not precious about https://virginiawoolfmiscellany. texts that the “commercial publisher could not the condition of their books. George Holleyman, wordpress.com/ or would not publish” (L. Woolf 80), they were the Brighton bookseller who arranged the sale of – TABLE OF CONTENTS – also intelligently marketed, with a “discourse of the Monk’s House Library to Washington State See page 22 exclusivity” that confers “distinction” on their University, described the general condition of the In Memoriam coterie audience (Willson Gordon 109). Even the 9,000 volumes remaining in the Woolfs’ library Cecil James Sidney Woolf famous imperfections of the handprinted Hogarth after Leonard’s death as “poor”: “it was always See page 8-21 Press books “employ casualness as a market essentially a working library and neither Leonard strategy”; therefore, “a printing press of one’s own INTERNATIONAL nor Virginia cared for fine books or collectors’ is both elitist and democratic” (Willson Gordon VIRGINIA WOOLF pieces. No books were kept behind glass and no 113, 112). This “both-and” model also applies to item was specially cared for. All were on open SOCIETY COLUMN See page 60 the tension inherent between the intention and shelves and became faded and dusty” (Holleyman after-life of Hogarth Press books in the rare book IVWS OFFICERS AND 2). Holleyman’s memorable depiction of the state market. After all, the personal, handmade, even MEMBERS-AT-LARGE of the Woolfs’ books includes phrases such as “dust sloppy printing of the early Hogarth Press books See page 59 laden,” “dust-begrimed,” “dampish odour,” and— contributes both to their value in the marketplace quoting Leslie Stephen—“mangy and worthless” EVENTS, CFPS AND INFORMATION: and to their evocation of a “warm intimacy,” as (Holleyman 5, 7). This last described Stephen’s own - CFP for the 30th Annual Conference Drew Patrick Shannon describes the act of touching portion of the library, the books that Virginia Woolf on a crumbling and signed copy of Woolf’s Beau inherited from her father, included in the sale of the Virginia Woolf Brummel. Shannon describes the value of this kind Monk’s House Library. Virginia and Leonard Woolf, (proposals due 1 February 2020) of haptic intimacy: “the book that was in my hands, like Leslie Stephen, were common book collectors, See page 4 which had once been in her hands, became more, readers and writers who collected books for their - CFP for MLA 2021 in that moment, than just a book. It fairly glowed use, not their exchange value. Theirs were books See page 60 with additional life” (Shannon 124). The haptic read, written on, left splayed open, faded, foxed, - IVWS panel MLA Chicago 2020 “value” of an early signed edition, its “warmth,” torn, and possibly left out in the rain. We might say - CFP and the Essay for the IVWS even in a book in such poor condition, clearly then that the Monk’s House Library is a collection Annual Angelica Garnett exceeds the economic “value” of the book in the of good books in poor condition; nonetheless, Undergraduate Essay Prize marketplace. There’s a kind of apostolic succession graced as they are with marginalia, sketches, and See page 3 in touching the book once touched by Woolf: we inscriptions associated with Stephen, the Woolfs, - IVWS Panel for the 2020 touch greatness when we brush our fingers over and the Bloomsbury Group, this collection is an Louisville Conference her signature in purple ink, or the rough stitches invaluable research tool for scholars of Woolf and - Call for Proposals: Annotated Woolf in embroidery thread she used to bind the pages of Bloomsbury. Clemson University Press Two Stories together. See page 5 Antiquarian booksellers tell novice collectors “Virginia Woolf and the World of Books,” the never to buy a good book in poor condition. Such a About the Virginia Woolf Miscellany: 27th Annual International Woolf conference held book has no resale value, unless it has association The Editorial Board and the Editors at the University of Reading, celebrated the value in terms of its provenance. But I imagine that See page 2 100th anniversary of the founding of the Hogarth many if not most of the Miscellany’s readership Editorial Policies Press and provided an occasion for discussing would gladly ignore this advice and pay $30 for See page 6 the collecting of Virginia Woolf and Hogarth y a tattered and “mangy” first American edition of Press books. As I contemplated my own paper The Common Reader simply for its connection SPECIAL TOPICS & CFPS on the topic, I quickly realized that I had many with Woolf and the Hogarth Press. How do we, Issue 97 Spring/Summer 2020 more questions than answers about the history of as common book collectors, define the “value” of Virginia Woolf: Mobilizing Emotion, collecting Hogarth Press books. Historically, when a Hogarth Press book? The Common Reader, for Feeling, and Affect did the demand for Virginia Woolf’s books and the example, was originally listed by the Hogarth Press Guest Editor: Celiese Lypka Hogarth Press’s books increase in the antiquarian at 7s, 6d (roughly £15.40 or $20 in today’s money), [email protected]. book trade? Who has collected these books? Who while that same first edition copy is now valued in Submissions due: collects them now? Are Woolf’s books more or less the ballpark of £2750 / $3600 (Maggs 14). While 1 February 2020 desirable than other modernist first editions? How the Hogarth Press’s books were originally fairly If you are interested in proposing a special do we define “value” when it comes to antiquarian affordable, their current valuation on the antiquarian topic or have or if you have any questions, books? I found myself less interested in the “great” book market places them firmly out of the range of please contact Vara Neverow at and “important” Bloomsbury collectors (however many book collectors. What would Virginia Woolf [email protected] enviable their private stashes) and more compelled have made of a marketplace in which her Common n n n by the passion of common book collectors, like Reader sells to a distinctly un-common collector? most of us. Who or what is a common book 1 collector? Paraphrasing Woolf on the Common Reader, I wanted to and Wax Books, and A.N. Devers, at The Second Shelf, bring a badly define their qualities and dignify their aims. I think of the Common Book needed feminist perspective to the business. By hosting a prize for Collector as someone who pursues a passion for books one library sale, women collectors under 30 (Honey and Wax) and focusing on books by book fair, charity shop, and antiquarian bookstore at a time. We admit women (Second Shelf), women booksellers and collectors reshape the to buying old books online, but prefer the serendipity of browsing real marketplace: “women collectors have benefitted from this […] more shelves with real dust on them. Like the Common Reader, we squirrel imaginative way of seeing what male dealers once dismissed” (Mehta). away our treasures into “rooms, too humble to be called libraries, yet full of books, where the pursuit of reading is carried on by private people” Antiquarian booksellers count among their clients the Special (V. Woolf 11). Collections librarians and archivists who do the invaluable work of preserving and cataloging book and manuscript collections and making In the spirit of Virginia Woolf, Common Book Collectors refuse the them available for scholarship. We spotlight here the Virginia Woolf pretension and posturing of high-end collecting. Our book collecting Collection at Victoria University Library, the Hogarth Press Collection heroes include notably uncommon collectors such as Frances Hooper, at Washington State University, and the Linda Langham Virginia who bequeathed her significant collection of Woolf’s manuscripts and Woolf Collection at Pace University with three pieces from Special books to Smith College. Hooper was an accomplished professional: Collection librarians Carmen Königsreuther Socknat (Victoria), Greg she founded the Frances Hooper Advertising Agency in Chicago in Matthews (WSU), and Ellen Sowcheck (Pace). Socknat’s essay offers 1920, becoming one of the first female executives in America. Her an overview of Victoria’s Woolf, Bloomsbury, and Hogarth Press book collections were extensive, focusing on illustrations by George collection, including its origin as the personal collection of Mary Coyne Cruikshank and Kate Greenaway, as well as books and manuscripts Rowell Jackman. Here we see the importance of women book collectors by Woolf, the Brontë sisters, and Carl Linneaus. And yet in a talk to in the development of university collections of Woolf and Hogarth the Hroswitha Club (a society for women book collectors) she refers Press materials: both Jackman for Victoria and Frances Hooper for to herself as a “collector” in quotation marks, modestly claiming: “I Smith College show us that humble beginnings may birth significant am not one of the great shakes; wherefore the quotes” (Hooper n.p.). collections. We should also mention that Lisa Baskin Unger’s collection While Hooper was undeniably an important American book collector, of women’s history and literature, now held at Duke University, includes regardless of gender, those quotation marks around the name “collector” Woolf’s writing desk.