<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><br></div><div>In fact, Vita's identifiability is crucial to Woolf's queer purposes--her deliberate violation of "the open secret"! See my chapter on Woolf and Portraiture in Maggie Humm's Edinburgh companion to VW and the Arts. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>sent from my iPad</div><div><br></div><div><br>On Dec 17, 2012, at 10:10 AM, "Stuart N. Clarke" <<a href="mailto:stuart.n.clarke@btinternet.com">stuart.n.clarke@btinternet.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>
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<div>If I were writing an article that had no primary research in it – even if I
were principally concentrating on theory – and I intended to begin thus:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>“at the time of ‘Orlando’’s publication, Vita Sackville-West’s status as
the inspiration and model for Orlando would not have been known to anyone but
those familiar with Bloomsbury gossip.” (<em>Virginia Woolf Miscellany</em>, no.
82, Fall 2012, p. 11b)</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I would still ask myself if that statement were true and whether I could
substantiate such an opinion. I might turn to a couple of books readily to
hand, and I might come up with the following quite different conclusion:</div>
<div> </div>
<p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-pagination: none" class="MsoNormal"><span style="LAYOUT-GRID-MODE: line"><font face="Times New Roman">If <i>Orlando</i> is
a <i>roman à clef</i>, then the door is unlocked -- even if it’s not ajar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The book is dedicated to ‘V.
Sackville-West’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Of the eight
illustrations, the three of Orlando as a woman are all photographs of Vita.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><i>Orlando</i> was published on 11
October 1928 (the date is given in the last sentence of the book).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Arnold Bennett identified Vita in the
photographs less than a month later (<em>Virginia Woolf: The Critical
Heritage</em>, ed. McLaurin & Majumdar, 232 [<i>Evening Standard</i>,
8/11/28, p. 7]), but Woolf wrote to Vita the day after publication: ‘Enthusiasm
in the Birmingham Post [Mail].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Knole is discovered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They
hint at you.’ (VW Letters #1938).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Without the dedication and the photos, identification would have taken
much longer, for Knole was not given to the National Trust until after the War
and until then was much less well known.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>We must assume, therefore, that it was Woolf’s intention that Vita be
identified</font></span></p>
<div> </div>
<div>Stuart</div></div></div>
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