[Vwoolf] Virginia Woolf and British Fascism

[Jeannette Smyth]

Thank you. That game of the dinner party you'd like to have in heaven seems to have been an actuality of the '20 and '30s in London, where they all intermingled. Touched upon briefly in the email was queer society, in which the beautiful and sharp-tongued Mitford sisters revelled, with Nancy at least, having one long-term gay (male) fiance. The meshing with Bloomsbury would there have been even fuller; I'm interested in the relation of the young Diana with Strachey/Carrington.

Nancy was very apologetic about her fascist novel, Wigs on the Green, and let Diana edit it. I believe she took out long passages on the Mosley character (apologies for misspelling Mosley throughout).

I have to agree with you that this wild mingling of the discourses between the wars could not but have had a sharpening and stimulating effect on Woolf -- as it did on the similarly ill-educated, and much more cloistered, Mitford sisters. I wonder if the fact none of them had been to school helped hip them to the education available to them in the social company of others?

I will pay attention to the question of Woolf reading Mitford. Watch this space.

Take care,

Jeannette Smyth


On Oct 14, 2014, at 6:12 AM, Erica Delsandro wrote:

> Jeanette -- Thank you for your email!  You hit on one of my deep interests: the fact that although the 1930s is portrayed as marked by distinct and divided political loyalties, the immediate postwar and the 1920s were much more politically dynamic with figures now securely positioned as anti-fascist, for example, praising Mosley, as you mentioned.  I love the constellations you drew out in your email.  May I make one suggestion: if you read Nancy's interwar novels (recently reprinted by Random House) you'll find subtle references to several socialites and intellectuals of the time.  (And they are so hilarious!)  In fact, Woolf is mentioned by name in Love in a Cold Clime (or is it Pursuit of Love... one of the two); she is heralded as the model of the female intellectual.  Personally, I am very interested if Woolf ever read Nancy Mitford.  I haven't been able to find any evidence but I also haven't looked terribly hard (the letters and diaries and the library at Pullman).  If you come across anything along those lines, please let me know!
> 
> Thanks again for your email!  It got my wheels turning this morning!
> 
> All best! -- EGD
> 
> PS -- The death of Deborah truly marks an end of an age.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Dr. Erica Gene Delsandro
> 

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