Miss Stephen's Apprenticeship
How Virginia Stephen Became Virginia Woolf
by Rosalind Brackenbury
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Pub Date Mar 15 2018 | Archive Date Mar 01 2018
University of Iowa Press | Muse Books
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Description
During the years leading up to her marriage with Leonard Woolf in 1912, the year in which she finished The Voyage Out and sent it to be published by her cousin at Duckworth’s, the future Virginia Woolf was teaching herself how to be a writer. While her brothers were sent first to private schools, then to Cambridge to be educated, Virginia Stephen and her sister Vanessa were informally educated at home. With this background, how did she know she was a writer? What were her struggles? How did she teach herself? What made Miss Stephen into the author Virginia Woolf?
Miss Stephen’s Apprenticeship explores these questions, delving into Virginia Woolf ’s letters and diaries, seeking to understand how she covered the distance from the wistful “I only wish I could write,” to the almost casual statement, “the novels are finished.” These days, the trajectory of a writer very often starts with studying for an MFA. In Woolf ’s case, however, it’s instructive to ask: How did a great writer, who had no formal education, invent for herself the framework she needed for a writing life? How did she know what she had to learn? How did she make her own way?
Novelist Rosalind Brackenbury explores these questions and others, and in the process reveals what Virginia Woolf can give to young writers today.
Advance Praise
“With uncommon grace and wit, Rosalind Brackenbury investigates Virginia Woolf’s journey from Victorian daughter to great writer. It takes a writer to truly see another writer’s awakening, and Brackenbury’s gifts as a novelist and poet inform this telling of ‘what happens inside the head and body of a writer’—that irreducible alchemy. A necessary book.”—Nancy Schoenberger, author, Dangerous Muse: The Life of Lady Caroline Blackwood
“The book is as timely as it is compelling since it illuminates the perennial question: Can one learn to become a genius? While Brackenbury is too honest to answer this (unanswerable) inquiry definitively, her attempts are supple, fecund, engrossing. That her voice is a charming mix of casual intelligence, erudition, and striking lyricism makes her musings all the more captivating. With clarity, brevity, insight, and wit, the text describes the challenges and rewards of the writing life as well as offers bracing advice for writers, ranging from ‘read avidly’ to ‘pay attention’ to ‘set a routine’ to ‘push to emotional extremes.’”—Eric G. Wilson, author, My Business Is to Create
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781609385514 |
| PRICE | $19.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 118 |
Featured Reviews
Anne M, Reviewer
This is a biography of Virginia Woolf told from her early years to about age 40. It focusses on her years leading up to meeting Leonard Woolf and how she develops her writing habits. And also how her family and family tragedies fed into her psyche and the way they influence her future stories. I really liked this book. I am a fan of Woolf and enjoy her writing - I remember first reading Mrs Dalloway and knowing I'd found someone special to spend a lifetime reading and rereading. Its nice to understand more about her - I didn't know about her links to St Ives which is a place I've visited several times and love.
Some quotes:-
"I write all the morning, walk all the afternoon, and read and write and look out of the window the rest of the time."
"Oh dear, what a lot I've got to read! The entire works of Mr James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, so as to compare them with the entire works of Dickens and Mrs Gaskell; beside that George Eliot; and finally Hardy."
She wasn't just reading the classics but anything she found in her father's library. She also enjoyed "trivial, ephemeral books."
Ms Brackenbury explains how the young Virginia recognised the gap between the person who served tea to her father and the person who wrote in her room. In this gap was freedom. Freedom "to change gender, to time travel, to be outrageous and to imagine widely. It was the space that eventually gave birth to Orlando." Ms Brackenbury is obviously a fan of Woolf and as an experienced writer is well able to develop the character of Woolf through her letters, journals, and writings but also there is a large part of Brackenbury herself here and I like that. Its like discussing Woolf with a friend.
Recommended if you like Virginia Woolf and want to know more about her formative years.
I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.
Candace P, Reviewer
This little book was a great fan for readers or writers. It summarizes Virginia Woolf's life before her marriage to Leonard Woolf, her self education to become the wonderful and classic writer she has become, and how certain characters from her novels were reflections of what had occurred in her own life. I really enjoyed the snippets from Virginia's letters and learning more about Virginia than what I had learned previously from Vanessa and Her Sister by Priya Parmar. I'm not sure that people who know a lot about Virginia will find something new in this novel or not since I am not in the camp :)
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