Beverly Cleary: She Inspired Many, But What Were Her Inspirations?

Source: Christina Kochi Hernandez/Getty Images

By Suzanne W. Hawley, MLS

I sighed sadly when I read of Beverly Cleary’s death on March 25. Those of us who work with children’s books revered her as an iconic figure in our field. She lived a long and full life, but I guess I thought she would always be with us. Still, 104 years isn’t bad!

Cleary often spoke about the original inspiration for her first novel, “Henry Huggins,” which was published in 1950. After college at UC Berkeley, she returned to her childhood home of Oregon to work as a librarian in Yakima. Tired of hearing her young patrons asking for “books about us,” and remembering she had experienced the same frustrations as a youngster, she set to work. To all of our enduring delight, she succeeded in developing the magical recipe for funny, smart stories about engaging characters…just like the kids in her own neighborhood.

Many years ago, I had the pleasure of listening to Cleary at an ALA Conference. She was an absolute delight. She was charming, funny, and perhaps a little shy. She talked about her life and career and included several stories about how her books came to life. Someone asked about the inspiration for “The Mouse and the Motorcycle.”

In the story, when Keith, the young hotel guest, leaves his room, Ralph S. Mouse scurries out from his piney knot, runs up a telephone wire, and jumps on the toy motorcycle that Keith has left behind. Ralph’s joyride ends when he and the motorcycle land in a trash can! Cleary created such a wonderful word picture of this escapade that I still laugh every time I read it.

So how did she come up with the idea for this book? Here’s the backstory. On one occasion, Cleary and her young son and daughter accompanied her husband on a business trip to England. During the trip, her son became ill and Mr. Cleary went shopping for something to take the boy’s mind off his ailment. A Hot Wheels motorcycle was the perfect answer. Needless to say, the toy was a hit, and her son had endless fun running it up and down the ridged lines on his bedspread: perfect roads for a small motorcycle.

Sometime later, when back at home, Ms. Cleary was working in her garden. She was sitting on the ground in front of a bench planting flowers when she heard scrambling behind her, followed by a loud noise. She looked up to where a large metal can sat at the end of the bench. Upon investigation, Cleary discovered that a mouse had run down the bench behind her, and instead of hopping to the ground, fell into the trash can. Add those two episodes together and voila! You have the ingredients for a delightful and enduring children’s story—at least at the hands of Beverly Cleary.

I told this account many times to groups of kids in my libraries and they reacted as I did: completely enthralled! Thank you, Beverly Cleary, for providing such wonderful stories for so many generations.

In addition to selecting children and young adult materials for library collections, Suzy Hawley spends her days interfering in her children’s lives as much as possible, wheedling her husband into cooking dinner just one more time, and walking on the beach. Click here for more.

Beyond the Clouds: What Ever Happened to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry?

By Travis Corter, Copywriter

“All men have the stars…but they are not the same things for different people…You—you alone—will have the stars as no one else has them…” — “Wind, Sand and Stars,” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

 

Photo © Domain de Saint- Exupéry

What is it about unsolved mysteries that keeps our minds churning into the late hours of the night? Is it the compulsion to solve a puzzle no one else has, to be the first to see things clearly? Or maybe it’s the compulsion to understand what happened to a fellow traveler in life, especially one who fell earlier than expected.

The addictive rush of flying and a conviction to serve his own fellow travelers is what propelled author and avid aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of “The Little Prince,” through nearly every phase of his life before his disappearance in the summer of 1944. But the circumstances surrounding his disappearance aren’t the only mysterious aspects of his short life. Debate continues over whether the man was a supremely skilled or reckless pilot, whether he used his friends for gain or genuinely cared for them.

Let’s start with some of the basics to get a better understanding of the famous pilot and revered writer.

• Born June 29, 1900, in Lyon, France.
• Became a part-time mail pilot in 1924.
• In October 1926, Saint-Exupéry flew mail to northern Africa, France, and Spain.
• Published “The Aviator,” his first short story, in a literary magazine in 1926—the same year his oldest sister died of tuberculosis.
• Saint-Exupéry’s first novel, “Night Mail,” was published in 1929.
• Married Consuelo Suncin, a widowed Salvadoran writer/artist, in 1931.
• During a 1935 Paris-to-Saïgon air race, Saint-Exupéry and André Prévot, his navigator, crashed in the Sahara desert. The two suffered mirages and fought dehydration and starvation for days—until a caravan of Bedouin found and helped them. This experience would years later become the key catalyst for “The Little Prince.” It was also detailed in Saint-Exupéry’s memoir “Wind, Sand and Stars.”
• Antoine Saint-Exupéry’s most popular literary work, “The Little Prince,” was published in French and English in 1943. First published in the United States due to the ongoing war, which prevented Saint-Exupéry from publishing in France, the book was published in France in 1946.
• On July 31, 1944, Saint-Exupéry embarked on an approved mission after eating with friends at a restaurant and cheerfully “performing card tricks and telling funny stories.” He was never seen again.

The Young Man

One of five children born into an aristocratic family, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was still a boy when his father, the Viscount Jean de Saint-Exupéry, died of a stroke. Antoine regarded his mother, Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger de Saint-Exupéry as “a beautiful, intelligent, and caring woman.” She and the five children moved to her aunt’s castle (yes, a real castle) in the northeast. Antoine’s dear brother, François, died from rheumatic fever at age 15, another reminder that loss is too often at the doorstep.

But Marie took Antoine for his first airplane ride when he was 12, and something new was born. So began an all-consuming love for flight. After failing to enter the French Naval Academy in 1918 and subsequently studying architecture at the School of Fine Arts in Paris, Saint-Exupéry earned his military pilot’s license in December 1921.

There was, however, more to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry than this passion for flight. Despite a shortened lifetime, he played many roles and left a lasting impact.

The Aviator

Acting as a mail pilot early in his career, Saint-Exupéry once fractured his skull in a plane crash. The accident dissuaded his fiancée at the time from further pursing their relationship due to the danger he constantly faced while flying. He also regularly rescued downed pilots. Some individuals claim they found balled-up pieces of paper in his planes and said the man would often keep flying until he completed the novel he was reading. This speaks to how his vocation and literary aspirations were closely intertwined.

When World War II descended, Saint-Exupéry flew reconnaissance missions for the French Air Force. As German Forces seized control of Paris in May 1940, Saint-Exupéry fled the country for New York. He would return to France in 1943 and promptly return to his squadron. Pilots 30 and over were not allowed to fly the P-38 Lightning, but then-42-year-old Saint-Exupéry convinced officials to make an exception for him. He once wrote in the “Paris-Soir” newspaper: “Don’t you understand that self-sacrifice, risk, loyalty unto death, these are behaviors that have contributed greatly to establishing man’s nobility?” He also confessed, “I feel like I am watching the war from a theatre seat.” He was also grounded, however, after crashing several planes.

The Lover

Saint-Exupéry married Consuelo Carillo shortly after meeting her. Photo source: Historiahoy.com.ar

He married Salvadoran widow Consuelo Carrillo, an artist/writer, shortly after meeting her in 1931. Consuelo says in her memoir, “The Tale of the Rose,” that Antoine Saint-Exupéry gave her a puma in France after she fled his proposal on the very night they met, in Argentina. The two shared a passionate, if terribly strained, marriage.

The Writer

Saint-Exupéry was known to start each writing day at 11:00 p.m. and wrote until dawn. He often called his friends after midnight to read bits of what he’d written aloud. His second novel, “Night Flight,” was published in 1931 and won France’s esteemed “Prix Femina” literary prize. In 1932, after an English-language translation of “Night Flight” was released, the book was adapted for the silver screen, starring John Barrymore.

Saint-Exupéry published “Land of Men,” which recounted his flights over South America and North Africa, in 1939. The memoir won the 1939 “Grand Prix du Roman” and was released in the U.S. under the title “Wind, Sand and Stars,” in which Saint-Exupéry also describes the 1935 crash that would go on to inspire “The Little Prince.” “Wind, Sand and Stars” received the Grand Prize for Fiction from the French Academy, along with the United States National Book Award for best nonfiction book, a testament to the blurred lines Saint-Exupéry’s writing navigated.

Saint-Exupéry’s memoir “Flight to Arras,” detailing his reconnaissance flights in France, was published in the United States in 1942.

“The Little Prince,” first published in the U.S. during World War II and published three years later (1946) in France, is the author’s best-known work. The story takes its inspiration from a 1935 plane crash that stranded Saint-Exupéry and his navigator in the Sahara desert with no food or water for several days. “The Little Prince” is a fable for both children and adults. In it, a prince, who hails from Asteroid B 612, gains wisdom by traveling throughout the universe. When he lands on Planet Earth, he meets a downed pilot in the desert. The themes reflect the author’s views on friendship, death, childhood, and more.

The book has sold nearly 200 million copies and been translated into over 300 languages. Saint-Exupéry handed his good friend, Silvia Hamilton, a paper bag with his illustrations and “The Little Prince” manuscript tucked inside, with this apology: “I’d like to give you something splendid…but this is all I have.” The book was illustrated by the author himself, who gave the publisher strict guidelines regarding illustration placement and the captions to be included, among other parameters.

“The Little Prince” boasts adaptations including movies, ballet, opera, anime, live theatre, games, and even the world of music.  France even opened a Little Prince theme park, Le Parc du Petit Prince, in 2014. The park boasts several attractions and exhibits, including a roller coaster called The Snake. In 2013, a signed first edition of the title was estimated to be worth $25,000-$35,000.

The Myth

No one had the slightest clue what became of the revered aviator and author. Some suspected an accident, or that he was shot down. Others thought the pessimism of his later years might have driven the pilot to suicide. Then, in September 1998, fisherman Jean-Claude Bianco found an engraved bracelet caught in his trawling net—a bracelet belonging to none other than Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Hoping to keep the man’s status as a revered war hero of almost mythical proportions, the surviving Saint-Exupéry family opposed efforts to investigate the source of a landing gear found by scuba diver Luc Vanrell in May 2000. Major pieces of Saint-Exupéry’s downed aircraft, a P-38, was found and brought to the ocean’s surface in 2003. A serial number confirmed this craft belonged to Antoine Saint-Exupéry, though the lack of bullet holes and combat damage keep the aviator author’s true fate hidden behind a shroud of secrecy.

The Legacy

A three-foot-tall bronze likeness of the titular character of “The Little Prince” stands outside the Northport-East Northport Public Library in Long Island, NY, the result of a joint effort between the Saint-Exupéry estate and French expatriate Yvette Cariou O’Brien. Museum exhibitions and a foundation launched by his surviving family continue to advance some of the causes Saint-Exupéry valued.

The Friend

There is one more role Saint-Exupéry played that had a large impact on himself and everyone around him: Friend.

Léon Werth, friend to Saint-Exupéry, told of his WWII ordeal in “33 Days,” though the memoir was not published until 1992. Photo source: Alchetron.com

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry dedicated “The Little Prince” to his close friend, Léon Werth, noting, “(H)e lives in France, where he is hungry and cold. He needs to be comforted.” Werth was a reputable Jewish critic and writer who could no longer publish once Germany occupied France. He would go on to survive World War II. Saint-Exupéry felt such a strong kinship with Werth that he smuggled Werth’s manuscript, a memoir recounting Werth’s ongoing ordeal and escape from a Paris ruled by wartime Germany, out of the Nazi-occupied country and brought it to New York.

Saint-Exupéry’s attempts to get his friend’s work published failed, but Saint-Exupéry did write an introduction to the memoir, which eventually be published in 1992. He wanted to convince the United States to enter World War II…and he longed to see his friend and compatriots set free of the fear that had made France inhospitable.

In the introduction to Léon Werth’s memoir, “33 Days,” Saint-Exupéry lamented one of several friends he’d lost in life. “Guillaumet, the last friend I lost, who was shot down flying mail service into Syria, I count him as dead, by God. He’ll never change. He’ll never be here again, but he’ll never be absent either.” Friendship and death seemed long intertwined throughout Saint-Exupéry’s life. He also noted in his “33 Days” introduction that “(t)he presence of someone apparently far away can become more substantial than before they left.” Meaning that absence truly does make the heart grow ever fonder.

Regarding the ache that comes from a cherished acquaintance being plucked out of one’s life, Saint-Exupéry wrote: “Bit by bit… it comes over us that we shall never again hear the laughter of our friend, that this one garden is forever locked against us. And at that moment begins our true mourning, which, though it may not be rending, is yet a little bitter. For nothing, in truth, can replace that companion…One by one, our comrades slip away, deprive us of their shade.” –Excerpt from “Wind, Sand and Stars.”

In “The Little Prince,” however, Saint-Exupéry assures readers that no one is ever truly gone: “In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night…”

Saint-Exupéry’s love of people drove him skyward time and again as a mail pilot. It was his love of people, not just country, that drove him to fight for France and join his comrades in the clouds during some of the most harrowing times the world has seen. He wasn’t perfect, not one of us is, but he was a fierce friend. And though his later writings may have seemed melancholy, Saint-Exupéry stood firm in the assertion that the darkest night is always lit by those we love, if only we look up.

Sources:

• Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Biography
• “75 facts you might not know about Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and The Little Prince”
• “The Life and Times of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry” By David Langley
• “When Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Disappeared” By Pierre Lassus
• “‘Little Prince’ Author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry on Losing a Friend” By Maria Popova
• “The other side of the story” By Martin Buckley
• “This Day in Aviation Tag Archives: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry”
• “33 Days by Léon Werth review – a searing chronicle of France’s 1940 exodus” By Nicholas Lezard
• “List of The Little Prince adaptations”
• “This Adorable ‘The Little Prince’ Theme Park Will Have You Booking a Trip to France” By Bailey Bennett
• “The Little Prince Statue”
• “Foundation Antoine de Exupery: Our Actions”
• “Wind, Sand and Stars” By Antoine de Saint Exupéry
• “The Little Prince” By Antoine de Saint Exupéry
• “33 Days” By Léon Werth © Domain de Saint- Exupéry

Books in the Family

By Gwen Vanderhage, MLIS

“Art is something that makes you breathe with a different kind of happiness.” ~ Anni Albers

In some families, there runs a thread of common traits, common interests, or particular talent. We see it with athletes like the Manning family, political dynasties, or some of the legendary acting families like the Barrymores. There are also family partnerships and dynasties in the world of children’s picture books. Three of the most successful picture book families happen to be African American and mixed. These are families who contribute mightily to the diversity shelves with their personal and universal stories.

Walter Dean Myers and Christopher Myers

Image credit: wbur.org

Walter Dean Myers is best known for his gripping teen novels exploring African American identity and urban life, as well as his powerful historical novels and biographies. He also authored many picture books. Christopher Myers, his son, was immersed in the craft of publishing from an early age and always dreamed of illustrating his father’s books. Before he was a teenager, Christopher began winning art contests and even had his art published in a children’s magazine. The two became collaborators when Christopher Myers was in college; he received a 1998 Caldecott Honor for their first picture book together, “Harlem.” Ultimately, the two would collaborate on five picture books, all of them featuring poetry written by Walter Dean Myers. Christopher Myers illustrated several of his father’s novels, as well.

Image credit: scholastic.com

Both illustrators brought exceptional talent and detail to their books. What’s more, they took immense pride in each other’s work and had real affection for each other, which is immediately obvious in reading interviews of them, or seeing them in person at book events — as I was lucky enough to do. In his chapter about their family in “Pass It Down,” Leonard Marcus writes about how both of them were worried about letting the other down in their collaborations. Christopher held his father’s writing in high regard, while Walter had great respect for his son’s art and never wanted him to feel judged when they worked together.

Since Walter Dean Myers’ death in 2014, Christopher Myers has been an outspoken advocate for the need to see diverse people and viewpoints in publishing. He is the creative director of the Make Me a World imprint at Random House, which published its first books this fall, to great acclaim. He has also been an ambassador of his father’s legacy. In his acceptance speech for his father’s Children’s Literature Legacy Award (American Library Association, 2019), he said:

You told us about young people like you were, ambitious and fearful, guarded and loving, intimidated and brave. Mixed-up and beautiful. You told me that the reward of a story was in the growth of a character, that no one cared about superheroes unless they had a weakness, a vulnerability that was a strength. That is what every child, in classrooms and prisons, riding subways or walking through cornfields, recognizes in these books you’d written and themselves. Kids who have been painted with masks, like thug or good-for-nothing, threat or fear; first you saw in them, yourself, and then articulated all that vulnerability, lightness, sweetness, and love.

This family that speaks to the importance of seeking out stories and voices, and telling your own, has made the Myers legacy one for all readers.

Donald Crews, Ann Jonas, and Nina Crews

Image credit: nccil.org

Donald Crews and Ann Jonas met at art school in the 1950s and shared careers and family from then on. In the 1960s, the two found most of their work in jacket design for books, before Donald published his first picture book, “We Read: A to Z.” It wasn’t until after Crews received a Caldecott Honor for his now-classic “Freight Train” that Ann began publishing ground-breaking picture books of her own. She was inspired by her two daughters, Nina and Amy, and included them as characters or models in most of her books. Nina Crews, now an adult and celebrated picture book maker in her own right, remembers being around her parents’ art and supplies all her life. In their family, creativity was celebrated in everything they did. They visited museums often, Ann made her daughters’ clothes, and the parents built their children toys like a play kitchen and dollhouse. This environment allowed for freedom of experimentation, and while Nina has followed in her parents’ footsteps, her artistic style is entirely her own. Nina Crews’ work mixes photography and collage, and features her father and her sister’s children as models.

The Pinkney Family

Image credit: hbook.com

Jerry Pinkney is one of the most celebrated American children’s illustrators working today. He won the 2010 Caldecott Medal for his interpretation of Aesop’s “The Lion and the Mouse” and has won numerous Caldecott honors, Coretta Scott King awards, and lifetime achievement awards from those same bodies, in addition to awards and honors outside of the American Library Association. Working from his home studio, Jerry Pinkney has spent a lifetime sharing his art with his family. His wife, Gloria Pinkney, was a milliner, silversmith, and storyteller before becoming an author. Together, they strove to fill their home with inspiration — common areas full of art supplies, dance and drama classes, and no television. The children made toys out of balsa wood or pipe cleaners; they dressed up in costumes and modeled for their father’s paintings. Eventually, all of the Pinkneys’ four children became artists in different disciplines.

Brian Pinkney was the most interested in his father’s artistic process and wanted to do whatever his father was doing. Brian published his first picture book in 1983, just after graduating college. While he was finding work as an illustrator, Brian was dissatisfied with painting and started working with scratchboard drawing. Over the years, his own style has become more recognizable and different from his father’s. He has written picture books of his own, while mainly illustrating the words of others. He has his own shelf of medals, Coretta Scott King Illustrator Awards and two Caldecott honors.

Gloria Jean has gone on to author her own picture books, most of them illustrated by her husband or sons Brian and Myles.

Myles Pinkney is a photographer who has contributed to books by his mother and has collaborated on picture books with his wife, Sandra L. Pinkney. Their book “Shades of Black” won an NAACP Image Award.

Andrea Davis Pinkney is a best-selling and award-winning author who married into the Pinkney family. She has received Coretta Scott King Author Awards and authored the books for which her husband, Brian Pinkney, earned Caldecott honors. The two have collaborated on 20 children’s books, in addition to their own critically-acclaimed projects.

Image credit: simonandschuster.com

The third generation of Pinkney artists is beginning to make their way in the publishing world this year. Granddaughter Charnelle Pinkney Barlow (daughter of Myles and Sandra) has her first book out in January 2020. In “Just Like a Mama,” Charnelle illustrates a text by Alice Faye Duncan. Charnelle’s art can be found on Instagram, where she has also been featuring her textile prints and designs @callmechartreuse.

Family talents and values really do make a lasting impact. My own family features several generations of teachers and readers. I know that my childhood experiences — from my mom reading aloud, to library trips when staying with my grandmother, and the crates of new books my reading specialist aunt would drive over to share — these all made a critical impact on the children’s librarian I am today. Do you have a family passion or talent passed on to you? Tell us about it in the comments.

Sources:

“2019 Children’s Literature Legacy Award Acceptance by Christopher Myers on Behalf of Walter Dean Myers” — Horn Book, June 24, 2019

Pass It Down: Five Picture-Book Families Make Their Mark — by Leonard S. Marcus

“The Pinkney Family: In the Tradition” — Horn Book, January 10, 1996

“The Pinkneys are a Picture Book Perfect, Author-Illustrator Couple” — NPR, August 11, 2019

Seeing Into Tomorrow: Haiku by Richard Wright — written by Richard Wright and illustrated by Nina Crews

“A Visit with Charnelle Pinkney Barlow” — Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, September 30, 2019

 

Gwen

After spending many years as a children’s librarian and collection development specialist at Denver Public Library, Gwen joined Brodart to share her passion for children’s literature with as many different libraries as possible. Click here for more.

What Ever Happened to Virginia Woolf?

By Paul Duckworth, MLS

“Lies will flow from my lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them; it is for you to seek out this truth and to decide whether any part of it is worth keeping.”

—Virginia Woolf, “A Room of One’s Own”

 

I’m a bit embarrassed, but I need to admit up front that I’ve never read anything by Virginia Woolf. Why embarrassing, you ask? First, because I’m writing this article about her. Second, because I was an English major in college and she was a prominent literary figure in the Bloomsbury set—as well as an atheist, feminist, and pacifist. One would think she would be a legitimate part of an English major’s education. What happened that kept me from getting acquainted with her? Maybe I skipped a course on early twentieth century writers, or perhaps my college didn’t give sufficient attention to female authors. Now, let’s look at the fact that most colleges in that time period, the early 1970s, failed to highlight most women authors. No, let’s not—that’s an entirely different article. Whatever the cause of my lack of familiarity with Woolf, I regret that I did not come to know her in my education. Thankfully, I discovered her through my career as a public librarian.

Right now, you may have thoughts and questions bubbling up in your mind.

“When did she live?”

“She killed herself, right?”

“Bloomsbury set? That’s old-fashioned women’s underwear, isn’t it?”

“She lived in a lighthouse, didn’t she?””

“I heard she was anti-Semitic.”

“She was a lesbian.”

“Wait—don’t tell me. Wasn’t she in that film “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

“Someone told me that her first name was not Virginia. Is that true?”

Or perhaps even: “Why is this guy writing an article about her?”

Whoa! Stop right there, please. All will be revealed. Be patient and I will correct some misconceptions and tell you, if not everything, then at least a lot of interesting things about Virginia Woolf.

First of all, as some of you are presuming, she is, in fact, deceased. She was born in London, England, in 1882, to a wealthy intellectual family. Woolf died in 1941 in the depths of the River Ouse, near her home in Sussex. Suffering from yet another lengthy period of debilitating depression, she had waded into the river, her pockets filled with heavy stones so that she would sink and drown. She had tried to take her own life, unsuccessfully, a few times earlier in her life, but this attempt proved successful.

An odd word to use in describing suicide: successful. Was her life successful, or was it her death that succeeded? What makes a life a success? By the standards of her time, she was wildly successful in that she married well, was exceedingly well-read and educated, and was a published author of fiction, nonfiction, essays, plays, and short stories. In addition, she was the central figure in a prominent artistic and literary group called The Bloomsbury Group. Money was always easily available to her, and so her life wasn’t burdened by the manual labor that most women endured in England in this time period.

Nothing stood in her way to work creatively regarding her thoughts, opinions, insights, writings, and associations with people. Nothing except her psyche. Her failing was not one of those usual ones of ability, time, or space, but rather was hidden in the inner reaches of her highly intelligent mind. She inherited a family curse—mental health issues that many of her relatives experienced. Hers was a fragile mind, prone to exhaustion and depression and shaken by the family dynamics of her early years, including being sexually molested by her two older half brothers, Gerald and George. All contributed significantly to what is clear today—she dealt with bipolar illness. She was vivid in her descriptions of how it manifested itself at times. One example is Woolf’s reflection on her mental state after completing her first novel “The Voyage Out.” “I married, and then my brains went up in a shower of fireworks. As an experience, madness is terrific… and not to be sniffed at, and in its lava I still find most of the things I write about. It shoots out of one, everything shaped, final, not in mere driblets as sanity does.”

Well, what about Woolf’s family? They were prominent and quite successful in turn-of-the-century London. Her father, Leslie Stephen, was a writer, historian, and biographer. He was the son-in-law, through his first marriage, of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray. Julia Margaret Cameron, her cousin, was a well-known photographer. Her brother, Adrian Stephen, was a pioneering psychoanalyst and well-known pacifist. Her half-brother Gerald Duckworth (no relation to the author of this article) founded the publishing company Gerald Duckworth and Company. Her sister, Vanessa Bell, was a painter and interior designer. Chevalier Pierre Ambrose Antoine de L’Etang, her great-great grandfather, was from the French nobility and served first as a page to Marie Antoinette and later as stable master of the royal stables at Versailles. Her husband, Leonard Woolf, was a political theorist, author, and publisher. He founded Hogarth Press, which consisted of a small hand-operated printing press located in his and Virginia’s home, Hogarth House, at 34 Paradise Road in London.

And so, what about Virginia herself?

• No, she did not live in a lighthouse. She did, however, write the novel “To the Lighthouse,” published in 1927.
• The question of anti-Semitism is a bit complicated. Her husband, Leonard, was Jewish. It’s clear, though, in some of her writings, that she described Jewish people in critical and negative ways. Here’s a line from a letter she wrote in 1930: “How I hated marrying a Jew — how I hated their nasal voices and their oriental jewelry, and their noses and their wattles — what a snob I was: for they have immense vitality, and I think I like that quality best of all.”
• Whether or not she was a lesbian might be debatable, but it is a fact that she had a long physical and emotional relationship with Vita Sackville-West, which began after Virginia married Leonard Woolf. Leonard knew of their affair and approved of it, because he wanted his wife, who was often gloomy and depressed, to have some happiness.
• Her first name was Adeline, the name of her mother’s deceased sister. Virginia’s family never called her Adeline, due to their painful association with the name.
• She did not, obviously, play any part in the 1966 Mike Nichols film, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, which was adapted from the 1962 Edward Albee play. So, where does the title come from, you ask? George and Martha, played onscreen by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, sing the lyrics “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” to the tune of “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” Interesting enough, in an interview with him published in The Paris Review, Albee stated “‘Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ means ‘Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf…who’s afraid of living without false illusions?” (See here for additional clarification)
• In addition to her novels, she is also known for her essays, including “A Room of One’s Own,” in which she stated, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

So, what are the takeaways here?

1. Would Woolf perhaps still be living and writing if she had had access to Symbyax, Prozac, or Risperdal? Slim chance, as she would be 137 years old.
2. Could she have benefited from talk therapy or positive psychology? While beneficial for many people, these approaches could not be a remedy for the severe bipolar symptoms from which Woolf suffered.
3. Should she be ignored, not given a spotlight, since, like so many prejudiced people, she seemed to have harbored anti-Semitic views? Good question, but it begs similarly revisionist appraisals of any number of past luminaries, including Theodore Roosevelt for his joy in slaughtering wild animals, Melvil Dewey for his lascivious behavior with women, and Frederic Remington for his anti-Semitism and racist views of Native Americans.
4. Should she have left her husband for Vita Sackville-West or worked for a closer connection with Leonard? Hmmm, sounds like magical thinking to me. What knowledge does one have of the ways of the heart and the pathways of individuation? Besides, by most accounts, Virginia and her husband were close.
5. Are her contributions of little value, given her personal life and death? Seriously!? How many other giants of literature could be similarly dismissed, given this manner of thinking?
6. Was Woolf a complicated enigma who offers little of value to modern readers? I wonder if this question might be more than a wee bit judgmental. Let’s dissect this thread and examine the facts.
   1. One should resist the temptation to judge historical authors on the basis of current standards and mores
   2. Her impact on her contemporaries was significant
   3. She helped lay the groundwork for future feminists

Woolf was a professional reviewer, innovative essayist, novelist, publisher, biographer, and political organizer in the socialist and women’s movements. She seems to have known or met nearly everyone of importance in her day, including Sigmund Freud, with whom she and Leonard had tea shortly after Freud escaped Nazi Vienna for London. She spoke out against war and violence. Professor Jean Mills, author of “Virginia Woolf, Jane Ellen Harrison, and the Spirit of Modernist Classicism,” said: “Woolf’s comment ‘thinking is my fighting’ was an aphorism that we can usefully claim for ourselves today. Her essay ‘Three Guineas’ has been read as her attempt to grapple with the root causes of violence and war, and she articulates several conceptions of peace throughout her literary output.”

Woolf was not hesitant to break the mold of cultural expectations for proper women’s behavior. In “10 Things You (Probably) Didn’t Know About Virginia Woolf,” the British literary biographer Lyndall Gordon wrote, “In the 19^th century nice women were quiet. Virginia Woolf said that she and her sister were taught the ‘tea-table’ manner. This was designed to keep polite, self-effacing conversation flowing. The most vital fact in her life was the contrast between this stifling of utterance, this concealment in ‘shadow’ and the ground shaking under her like an earthquake when she brought out her full-throated ‘Outsider’ voice, protesting against military or domestic violence in favour of nurture, listening and sympathy, values which the civilized of both sexes already share. The voice of her Outsider prepares the way for the present voice of the #MeToo generation.”

In the midst of Woolf’s articulate contributions to literary, cultural, political, and social circles, there was an intermittent and turbulent wrestling with an unknown force within her psyche. She was unable to elude it. In a suicide note she left to her husband, Leonard Woolf, she wrote, “I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of these terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do.”

If a person were to take away only one reason to celebrate Woolf, it would be my assertion that she was not just an important author, but a feminist icon. How so? She gave two lectures at the University of Cambridge’s women’s colleges in 1928 and developed them into the famous essay “A Room of One’s Own,” which was published the following year. As Wikipedia states, it was “an important feminist text… noted in its argument for both a literal and figurative space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by men.” Her voice, along with those of other women writers before and after, has helped to open up publishing to women. And, it has helped put more women’s book on our library shelves and important voices in the spotlight.

 

Paul

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