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Virginia Woolf — most know the name, but few know the obscure biographical facts behind the name. Below are 10 little known facts about the troubled writer.
- Woolf once said that her death would be the “one experience I shall never describe.”
- When Woolf taught at Morley College, she made her students write essays about themselves.
Virginia Woolf in her garden at Monk House
- For a summer, she went mad believing that the birds were chirping in Greek and King Edward VII was saying curses from behind a nearby bush.
- Woolf was a difficult shopper, often arguing with shopkeepers over what products they had for sale and what products she imagined they should have for sale.
Leonard and Virginia Woolf
- After getting married, Woolf thought she should learn some domestic skills, so she enrolled in a school of cookery. Shortly after, she accidentally baked her wedding ring in a pudding.
- Before Woolf was even 7 years old, her mother, Julia, was teaching her Latin, French, and History.
(L-R) Virginia Woolf, Duncan Grant, Adrian Stephen, Anthony Buxton, Guy Ridley, Horace Cole
- Woolf and five of her male friends once received a 40-minute tour of the British battleship H.M.S. Dreadnought with the ship’s commander after painting their faces black, dressing in robes, and presenting themselves as the Prince of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) and his entourage.
- Woolf first tried to kill herself at the age of 22 by jumping out of a window. The window she jumped from, however, was not high enough to cause serious harm.
T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf in 1924
- When Woolf asked T.S. Eliot at a particular dinner party to define his belief in God, Eliot did not answer.
- When Virginia and Leonard Woolf, who together ran the Hogarth Press, received the manuscript of the first chapters of James Joyce’s Ulysses, they turned it down for publication because it was impossible to print the entire book on their handpress.
Interested in learning more about Virginia Woolf through her writing?
Orlando: A Biography
Author: Virginia Woolf
ISBN: 9780141184272
Price: 24,5 GEL
Buy the Book
Between the Acts
Author: Virginia Woolf
ISBN: 9780141184524
Price: 24,5 GEL
The Common Reader
Author: Virginia Woolf
ISBN: 9780141389899
Price: 14,9 GEL
Buy the Book
A Room of One’s Own
Author: Virginia Woolf
ISBN: 9780141018980
Price: 14,9 GEL
