The Charleston Bulletin Supplements, by Virginia Woolf and Quentin Bell

The Charleston Bulletin was a family newspaper produced between 1923 and 1927 by the teenaged Quentin Bell and his elder brother Julian — who soon dropped out, leading Quentin to recruit his aunt Virginia Woolf. At that time enjoying her most prolific period as a novelist, she collaborated with him on special issues which they called Supplements, for circulation at Christmas among the family and friends whose foibles and mishaps are chronicled in its pages. Professor David Bradshaw in his preface suggests that ‘it may not be ridiculous’ to link the ‘skittish abandon’ of the Supplements with the sense of liberation that Woolf felt in having found her fictional voice and critical recognition.

Quentin did the funny drawings, and mostly Virginia dictated the words to him, though sometimes she wrote them in her own handwriting round the edges and underneath. There is an ample explanatory introduction by Claudia Olk, with dropped-in family snaps.