Virginia Woolf

Julia Briggs

Night and Day (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)

Quentin Bell

The first full-scale biography of the British writer, written by her nephew.

A Biography

A portrait of the influential twentieth-century writer steps away from traditional explorations of her Bloomsbury social circles to reveal how her life was centered on her writing, drawing on letters, diaries, and essays to explain how her written works reflect her formative experiences and creative philosophies. Reprint.

An Inner Life

One of the most original and influential figures in twentieth century literature, Virginia Woolf has paradoxically become known as much for her personality as her writing. In this new biography Julia Briggs gets back to the Virginia Woolf the writer. Structured around Woolf's major novels and the creative process behind them, Briggs tells the story of Virginia Woolf's life through her books to give a new insight into her literary genius and how some of the most important works of the twentieth century were created.

"Virginia Woolf is the greatest of all British women writers and one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century writing. Julia Briggs' aim in this book is to put the writing back absolutely at the centre of Woolf's life; to read that life through her books, using the novels themselves to create a compelling new form of biography. Using Woolf's own matchless commentary on the creative process through her letters, diaries and essays, Julia Briggs has produced a book which is a picture of an artist at full stretch but also a meditation on the whole nature of creativity."--BOOK JACKET.

Virginia Woolf is the greatest of all British women writers and one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century writing. She was a novelist utterly immersed in books, wholly original, passionate, vivid and with a steely dedication to her art. Yet given that what we value about Woolf’s life is her nine great novels, most writing about her still tends to revolve around her social life and the fascinating planet of the Bloomsbury Set. Julia Briggs’ aim in this fresh, absorbing new book is to put the writing back absolutely at the centre of Woolf’s life; to read that life through her books, using the novels themselves to create a compelling new form of biography. Using Woolf’s own matchless commentary on the creative process through her letters, diaries and essays, Julia Briggs has produced a book which is a convincing, moving picture of an artist at full stretch, but also a brilliant meditation on the whole nature of creativity. 'Virginia Woolf - An Inner Life' will be a revelatory experience for anyone who has come under the spell of Woolf’s world, giving a brilliant new insight into a literary genius.

The Rise and Fall of the English Ghost Story

Night Visitors

Dennis Butts

The astonishing success of J.K. Rowling and other contemporary children's authors has demonstrated how passionately children can commit to the books they love. But this kind of devotion is not new. This timely volume takes up the challenge of assessing the complex interplay of forces that have created the popularity of children's books both today and in the past. The essays collected here ask about the meanings and values that have been ascribed to the term 'popular'. They consider whether popularity can be imposed, or if it must always emerge from children's preferences. And they investigate how the Harry Potter phenomenon fits into a repeated cycle of success and decline within the publishing industry. Whether examining eighteenth-century chapbooks, fairy tales, science schoolbooks, Victorian adventures, waif novels or school stories, these essays show how historical and publishing contexts are vital in determining which books will succeed and which will fail, which bestsellers will endure and which will fade quickly into obscurity. As they considering the fiction of Angela Brazil, Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and J.K. Rowling, the contributors carefully analyse how authorial talent and cultural contexts combine, in often unpredictable ways, to generate - and sometimes even sustain - literary success.

Popular Children’s Literature in Britain

The pleasure and excitement of exploring Virginia Woolf's writings is at the heart of this book by a highly respected Woolf critic and biographer. Julia Briggs reconsiders Woolf's work--from some of her earliest fictional experiments to her late short story, 'The Symbol', and from the most to the least familiar of her novels--from a series of highly imaginative and unexpected angles. Individual essays analyse Woolf's neglected second novel, Night and Day and investigate her links with other writers (Byron, Shakespeare), her ambivalent attitudes to 'Englishness' and to censorship, her fascination with transitional places and moments, with the flow of time (and its relative nature), her concern with visions and revision and with printing and the writing process as a whole. We watch Woolf as she typesets an extraordinarily complex high modernist poem (Hope Mirrlees's 'Paris'), and as she revises her novels so that their structures become formally - and even numerologically - significant. A final essay examines the differences between Woolf's texts as they were first published in England and America, and the further changes she occasionally made after publication, changes that her editors have been slow to acknowledge. Julia Briggs brings to these discussions an extensive knowledge of Woolf both as a scholar and as an editor. She records her findings and observations in a lively, graceful and approachable style that will entice readers to delve further and more meaningfully into Woolf's work

Reading Virginia Woolf

In A Woman of Passion, Julia Briggs chronicles the life of author Edith Nesbit who is credited with being the first modern writer for children and the creator of the children's adventure story. Nesbit recorded her life with varying degrees of honesty in verse and prose, and while she seldom wrote entirely openly of her own experiences, she seldom wrote convincingly of anything else. In this fascinating read, Julia Briggs attempts to fill in the gaps of Nesbit's autobiographical material, painting an intriguing portrait of the famous author.

The Life of E. Nesbit

A Woman of Passion

Matthew Orville Grenby

Responding to the astonishing success of J. K. Rowling and other contemporary authors, the editors of this timely volume take up the challenge of assessing the complex interplay of forces that have generated, and sometimes sustained, the popularity of children's books. Ranging from eighteenth-century chapbooks to the stories of Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl, and from science schoolbooks to Harry Potter, these essays show how authorial talent operates within its cultural context to make a children's classic.

Julia Briggs

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