[Vwoolf] "Orlando" and the kiddies

[Sarah M. Hall]

 It sounds unwittingly comedic; the National Theatre of Brent (BBC Radio 4 comedy show) or the Monty Python team might have penned it. No editor worth their salt has been within a mile of this. I feel like buying a copy just so I can take my red pen to it and send it to the Editorial Director. But I imagine you are already halfway through it with your red pen, Stuart ...

I intend to reuse that mixed metaphor.

Sarah

Sarah M. Hall
Executive Council, Virginia Woolf Society of GB
Web: virginiawoolfsociety.org.uk
Facebook: @VWSGB
Twitter: @VirginiaWoolfGB
Instagram: @virginiawoolfsociety



    On Wednesday, 28 September 2022 at 15:44:25 BST, Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:  
 
  William Collins (now part of HarperCollins publishers) have long published classics (no need to pay royalties) and have also specialised in books for schools. Their 2014 edn of “Orlando” (Collins Classics) has been brought to my attention. William Collins (now part of HarperCollins publishers) have long published classics (no need to pay royalties) and have also specialised in books for schools.  Their 2014 edn of “Orlando” (Collins Classics) has been brought to my attention.  There is no index, no sub-title, no preface, no illustrations, no notes. There is a 5-page anonymous intro., which is Woolf-bashing to an extent I never thought to see these days, even in the UK.  It’s difficult to pick out an example, since it is *all* terrible, but here goes: “Woolf is a classic case of an artist whose creative expression was bad for their health.  Had she abandoned writing in favour of an occupation that took her mind away from her obsessive thoughts, she would undoubtedly have lived a happier and more fulfilled life, but instead she became the author of her own undoing.” Also, the author can’t write:  “the Bloomsbury Set ... were all goldfish in the same bowl, looking out at the world around them with a similar artistic palette.” “the Dreadnought Hoax ... was an elaborate plan to gain egress to the battleship” Woolf was an “intelligentsium” (this is a non-existent word, which the author obviously thinks is the singular of “intelligentsia” and is therefore cod-Latin; “intelligentsia” comes from the Russian and has the same singular and plural, although I’m not sure how you could use it in the singular) Didn’t Tom Lehrer say that he liked to tour around, undoing all the good that Billy Graham had done? Teachers: you may have your work cut out. Stuart“Some can gaze and not be sick,But I could never learn the trick.”_______________________________________________
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