[Vwoolf] From the Guardian: Virginia Woolf's fun side revealed in unseen manuscripts

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Leslie Hankins thought you might be interested in this link from the  
Guardian: Virginia Woolf's fun side revealed in unseen manuscripts

Written for young nephews Quentin and Julian Bell, family newspaper  
contains gentle lampoons of family and servants
Alison Flood
Thursday 7 February 2013

guardian.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/feb/07/virginia-woolf-lighter-side-unseen-manuscripts

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An affectionate, mischievous side to Virginia Woolf is set to be revealed  
in the author's last unpublished work, a series of 90-year-old family  
vignettes that will be released for the first time this summer.

The Charleston Bulletin was a family newspaper founded by Woolf's nephews,  
Quentin and Julian Bell, as children in the summer of 1923. Quentin, the  
son of Clive Bell and Woolf's sister Vanessa Bell, went on to become a  
well-known art historian and biographer of his aunt, but as a young  
teenager he was cajoling Woolf to write for his paper. "It seemed stupid to  
have a real author so close at hand and not have her contribute," he said  
of the project.

Woolf agreed to get involved, and wrote or dictated a series of supplements  
– illustrated by Quentin – for the newspaper between 1923 and 1927. The  
booklets describe the escapades, characters and antics of Bell and Woolf's  
family, as well as their household servants and members of the Bloomsbury  
Group. "No one escapes the sharp wit and teasing by aunt and nephew, and  
Woolf's humour and mischievous nature are brought to the fore in this new  
publication by one of the 20th century's greatest authors," said the  
British Library, which will publish The Charleston Bulletin Supplements for  
the first time this June.
Charleston Bulletin 'Little or nothing of ponderable quality' ... Quentin  
Bell in the Charleston Review. Illustration: The Britsh Library
In one sketch, Woolf pokes fun at her brother-in-law Clive Bell,  
writing: "It is understood that Clive Bell Esquire attained his present  
undisputed eminence in the world of Art and Letters by his skill in the  
science of equitation; and his vulpine ascendency here displayed to which  
his literary zeal, and familiarity with the classics of our tongue here  
displayed, added little or nothing of ponderable gravity." Quentin Bell has  
illustrated each of Woolf's "here displayed"s with images of his father,  
riding a horse or striding along with a volume of Keats under his arm.
Charleston Bulletin 'It stank: it stuck' ... Trisy's porridge.  
Illustration: The Britsh Library
In another, the novelist writes of "Trisy", who appears to be a household  
cook. "When in a good and merry mood Trisy would seize a dozen eggs, and a  
bucket of flour, coerce a cow to milk itself, and then mixing the  
ingredients toss them 20 times high up over the skyline, and catch them as  
they fell in dozens and dozens and dozens of pancakes." Trisy's porridge is  
less celebrated by Woolf: "But her porridge was a very different affair,"  
she writes. "This was close [illegible] and crusty. It dolloped out of a  
black pan in lumps of mortar. It stank: it stuck."

"It's picking up on family jokes, and on what was obviously an interesting  
literary circle around them, taking on members of the Bloomsbury Set," said  
Helen Melody, curator of modern literary manuscripts at the British  
Library. "No one is really left out of being made fun of. It's not  
malicious though … She enjoyed doing it and spending time with her  
nephews." The author refers, obliquely, to the endeavour in the preface to  
Orlando, where she describes Quentin Bell as "an old and valued  
collaborator in fiction".

Melody said that Bell saw The Charleston Bulletin as a continuation of the  
Hyde Park Gate News, which Woolf wrote with her sister Vanessa as a young  
girl in the late 19th century. Woolf was involved with the newspaper at the  
same time as she was writing novels including Mrs Dalloway and To the  
Lighthouse, said Melody.

"What a different side to her it shows – how light-hearted she is here,  
compared to in some of her better known works," she said. "It is just so  
different from everything else we have from her. It was just for the  
family, but it's very well done, not just done off the hoof – she's  
obviously put time and effort into it."

Melody believes The Charleston Bulletin is "very likely" to be the last  
unpublished work from Woolf, and hopes its release by the British Library,  
which acquired the documents in 2003, will give the reading public a chance  
to see how "very light-hearted" Woolf could be. The author went on to write  
novels including The Waves and The Years, committing suicide in 1941.

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