BW13 - Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

On March 28, 1941, Virginia Woolf filled her coat pockets with rocks and walked into the River Ouse.  She had been battling depression for a very long time and decided to give up the fight. In a letter to her husband, she said:

I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those 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. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that — everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer.

Brainpickings Articles:  How Virginia Woolf's letter interpreted by the media

Despite her battle with depression for much of her life, Woolf was a forward thinker and intellectual writer whose compelling stories were full of stream of consciousness and introspective writing.  Along with her novels, she published numerous short stories, essays and wrote powerful letters.  For more information on Woolf's life, check out The Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain. 

I currently have Mrs. Dalloway on my shelves and will be reading it this week in honor of Virginia Woolf.  Join me in reading her works this week.  All are available online here at The University of Adelaide.

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History of the Medieval World - The Huns  423 - 450 AD  (pp 106 - 114)

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