[Vwoolf] Portrait of a Londoner

[mhussey at verizon.net]

I wasn’t aware that ‘Portrait of a Londoner’ had ever been considered “lost”—perhaps that was just an assumption made because it wasn’t included when Frank Hallman (or ‘Hallam’ as the notes to the Snowbooks edition incorrectly has it) made his edition of The London Scene, the one that was later reprinted by Hogarth. That Francine Prose is the source of the canard isn’t surprising, given what a hash she made of her account of the genesis of Mrs. Dalloway when she introduced the Mrs Dalloway Reader (a volume published to cash in on the success of The Hours). With Beth Daugherty’s prompting, I tidied up and corrected Prose’s prose for the paperback edition. Sigh. Celebrity authors are probably good for publishers but not so much for scholarship.

 

From: Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu> On Behalf Of Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2022 4:56 AM
To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Portrait of a Londoner

 

I am not aware of how “persistently” this canard has been repeated, but it seems to originate in Francine Prose’s intro. to the NY: Ecco (HarperCollins) edition (& see the dust-jacket) of n.d. (2006): “her lost ‘Portrait of a Londoner’ 

I am not aware of how “persistently” this canard has been repeated, but it seems to originate in Francine Prose’s intro. to the NY: Ecco (HarperCollins) edition (& see the dust-jacket) of n.d. (2006): “her lost ‘Portrait of a Londoner’ essay, rediscovered in 2004 by British publisher Emma Cahill in the University of Sussex archive” (p. xiii).  See also notes 1 to each of the essays in “Essays” vol. 5 for the location of the proofs etc that are extant.

 

See also the correspondence below from Woolf_Studies_Annual, 11 (2006): 1-2.

 

Stuart

 

From: Stella Deen via Vwoolf 

Sent: Friday, July 15, 2022 1:13 AM

To: VWOOLF 

Subject: [Vwoolf] Portrait of a Londoner

 

Dear All: I wonder why the sixth of Woolf's London Scene Essays, "Portrait of a Londoner" is persistently said to have been lost until re-discovered in 2004 at the University of Sussex? I have not done any research in the archive, 

Dear All:

 

I wonder why the sixth of Woolf's London Scene Essays, "Portrait of a Londoner" is persistently said to have been lost until re-discovered in 2004 at the University of Sussex?  I have not done any research in the archive, sadly, and perhaps the answer is that "Portrait of a Londoner" was not filed with the other manuscripts in the series.  But since the essay was duly published in Good Housekeeping (in December 1932), preceded by the other London Scene essays, was it really "lost"?

 

Stella Deen (she/her)

Interim Chair, Communication Studies

Associate Professor of English

CSB 50

State University of New York at New Paltz

 

 





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