[Vwoolf] Portrait of a Londoner

Fri Jul 15 09:02:33 EDT 2022

Sigh. Isn't it mostly an "American" thing ... the assumption on the part of the publishers that authors like Frances Prose and Michael Cunningham and various other "creative" writers are more likely to spark interest (and boost sales) in their introductions than "dull" scholars? Mark's successful effort to persuade Harcourt to ... gasp! ... allow academics to write the introductions to Woolf's works that were still in copyright was absolutely radical--and extremely rare.

Cunningham continues to spew his questionable "insights" about Mrs. Dalloway. And Mark's recent review of five editions of Mrs. Dalloway in Issue 98 of the Miscellany documents the problems that frequently emerge in non-scholarly editions.

Is it possible that the "lost" London Scene essay was omitted intentionally in the 1975 version because it was somewhat different in style from the others? Was it just sloppy--a failure to include the last essay because it was overlooked?

Vara

Vara Neverow
(she/her/hers)
Professor, English Department and Women’s and Gender Studies Program
Managing Editor, Virginia Woolf Miscellany
Southern Connecticut State University
New Haven, CT 06515
203-392-6717
neverowv1 at southernct.edu

I acknowledge that Southern Connecticut State University was built on traditional territory of the indigenous peoples and nations of the Paugusett and Quinnepiac peoples.
________________________________
From: Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu> on behalf of Mark Hussey via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2022 8:30:32 AM
To: 'Stuart N. Clarke' <stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com>; vwoolf at lists.osu.edu <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Portrait of a Londoner

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

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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