Previous Lot Next Lot

Auction: 323 - The Numismatic Collector's Series Sale
Lot: 1447

Woolf, Virginia (1882-1941). English author. Perhaps the foremost modernist of the twentieth century. TLS, 2pp, 4vo. 52 Tavistock Square, London. January 24. No year [1934]. To her nephew and biographer, Quentin Bell. "I have now got back to my type writer, so I can write to you again with some hope that you may be able to read me. Only it is now a ghastly yellow fog so that I can hardly see. Miss Belsher took two hours to get to the press this morning; and Pinka was lost in the vast abyss of the sqaure [sic]. Now everybody is coming back to town - Nessa, Julian, Clive, Duncan; old Roger is lecturing; but I did not go; nor have I yet seen the Academy pictures. But Nessa will tell you all that. Here we have had an odd scatter of human beings - Rose Macaulay like a mummified cat; a freind [sic] of hers who brought a dog; Vita; and a vast lunch party given to Ethel Smyth. I had to sit next [to] her,' there were about 300 people and blazing lights. Sir Thomas Beecham made a speech and brought the house down by saying that he had visited Ethel Smyth in her confimenet[sic - confinement]; 'I do not mean what you think' he said; but the roars of laughter continued. (She was in prison as a suffragist). That was the style. And Ethel got up and said that Sir Thomas conducted - - she did not say misconducted - - again a roar of laughter…Helen has the flu; and that son of his has the congenital idiotcy[sic]…I am writing about sodomy at the moment and I wish I could discuss the matter with you; how far can one say openly what is the relation of a man and a sod?..." Signed "Virginia." There are numerous hand written corrections by Woolf. A small fold split at left, repaired.


From the collection of Diana Herzog.

Sold for
$2,500