A lightning tour

In her foreword to this short study of Virginia Woolf,  Alexandra Harris writes that ‘it is meant as a first port of call for those new to Woolf and as an enticement to read more’. There is some justification for such a book — a synthesis giving the outline of Woolf’s life with pertinent interpretative commentary on the novels and other writings. While such an aim is not new, the book will inevitably reflect the concerns of the moment, the stamp of each generation’s particular interest. If this is so, the longer appeal of such a study is not necessarily guaranteed. Harris presents a Woolf for the early 21st century.

Over the years, the variety of approaches to Virginia Woolf has been greater, perhaps, than for many another considerable figure. Early critical studies were overwhelmingly formalist, placing her novels within the framework of a modernist aesthetic. After A Writer’s Diary (1954), the personality  revealed there began to inflect interpretation.