[Vwoolf] Cecil Woolf

Tue Jun 11 17:51:01 EDT 2019

Like everyone else, I’m just heartbroken.  Something I wrote up on Cecil below.

FOR A TRUE MAN OF LETTERS

I met Cecil Woolf in the summer of 2004, at the Back to Bloomsbury Virginia Woolf Conference in London.  I’d just heard him speak about his memories of Virginia and Leonard, and nervously approached him in the lobby of the Senate House.  He immediately grasped my hand, and, visibly upset that someone had made a rather nasty remark about Leonard as a husband, he peered at me through his glasses with those big, clear eyes (his most striking feature, to my mind), and said, “Can you tell me WHY some people hate Leonard?”  I was both startled by the question and flattered that he should ask me, given that I was a graduate student at my second Woolf conference, and what the hell did I know?  I answered that I for one don’t hate Leonard, and think that he was the best husband Virginia could have asked for.  At which point he gripped my hand more tightly, and a friendship was born.

We began corresponding almost at once.  I think every Woolfian who met Cecil spent the first bit of time in his presence overcoming the fact that he KNEW VIRGINIA WOOLF.  But happily this was really the least of it, at least for me, and I quickly began to love the man for himself: for his wit, his charm, his ceaseless energy, his tack-sharp mind, his kindness and consideration.  And, underneath his charm, there was his biting wit.  I will forever cherish the occasional whispered remark in my ear at many an event, remarks calculated to make me giggle and which required whatever poise I possess to keep myself straight-faced.  And what might’ve seemed like name-dropping to the outsider was simply a catalog of his friendships and acquaintances.  He’d say, “Jean, what year was it that we had Edward Heath over for dinner?”  (Yes, that Edward Heath.)  Or, “I bumped into Quentin Crisp in Regent’s Park, and he said…”  Or, “T. S. Eliot once said to me…”  And his priceless anecdote about Duncan Grant, looking long-haired and shaggy in the 1960s, wandering around Piccadilly; when questioned by Cecil about his appearance, Duncan spacily replied, “Well…my barber died.”

Over the years, we stayed in each other’s homes, ate many meals together, drank countless bottles of good wine, watched films together, took walks together.  The Woolfs’ kindness to me and my husband John McCoy was boundless.  They also quite graciously entertained three groups of my students from Mount St. Joseph University, regaling them with stories of Leonard and Virginia, and letting the students touch the Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant paintings, and the lovely table from the Omega Workshop in their sitting room.  I will always remember the quiet room full of students, listening to Cecil speak in his soft, sometimes gravelly voice.

Some other moments of being:

Cecil and Jean coming to my rescue when I was stranded in London for a night on my way to Barcelona, coming to pick me up at the Mornington Crescent tube station, hustling me to their house, planting me at the table where Leonard and Virginia once printed Hogarth Press books, Jean making me a plate of scrambled eggs at one in the morning and Cecil soothing my nerves over my missed flight.

John and Jean and Cecil and I getting miserably lost on the backroads near Georgetown College during the 2010 conference, due to a mixup between the roads called “Lemon’s Mill” and “Old Lemon’s Mill.”  The following morning, Jean screamed from the backseat, “Now, John, as you’re driving, remember:  It’s Lemon’s Mill, not OLD Lemon’s Mill!”  She gripped my arm and said, “Last night, I really thought we were going mad, didn’t you?”

Sitting with Jean and Cecil and John in our pajamas at our dining table late at night after the conference proceedings in Georgetown, drinking wine and eating cheese and talking about the literary life in London.

Watching DOG DAY AFTERNOON (Cecil was obsessed with Al Pacino, though he’d never seen this one) on DVD, which I’d bought for him earlier that day, on a small TV screen in their sitting room, the four of us hunched over together.  When Al Pacino screams, “Attica! Attica!”  Cecil said, “Only in America.  Only in America.”

Interviewing Cecil about his history in publishing, and the colorful figures he encountered there.  With his usual modesty, he said, “Surely you’ve had enough.  Aren’t you bored?”

His patience with me as I labored over a monograph for him, which I simply couldn’t get finished due to busyness, teaching, and neurosis.  When I finally turned it in, he said, “Ah, at last.  I have your magnum opus.”

There are others, but some I prefer to keep to myself.

We lost a great man yesterday.

Rest easy, Cecil Woolf.  Thank you for being our link to a past that we all long to connect to, and such a force of nature in our present.

[cid:image001.png at 01D5207E.3AE238D0]

Drew Shannon
Associate Professor of English
Department of Liberal Arts
Historian / Bibliography of the International Virginia Woolf Society
Mount St. Joseph University
5701 Delhi Road | Cincinnati, OH 45233-1672
513-244-4541 | Drew.Shannon at msj.edu<mailto:Drew.Shannon at msj.edu>
"I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual." -- Virginia Woolf, Diary, 17 February 1922
Please consider the environment before printing this email.

From: Vwoolf [mailto:vwoolf-bounces+drew.shannon=msj.edu at lists.osu.edu] On Behalf Of Jane Marie Garrity via Vwoolf
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2019 4:21 PM
To: K L Levenback <kllevenback at att.net>
Cc: vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
Subject: [Vwoolf] Cecil Woolf

Paula, just to echo what others have said: thank you so much for that lovely and moving tribute. Cecil was such a gracious and generous human being—he will be sorely missed! Is there an address where we can drop a condolence card to Jean? So sad to hear this news, but many thanks—
Jane
Sent from my iPad

On Jun 11, 2019, at 8:03 PM, K L Levenback via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>> wrote:
So sad.  Every word of every response to the news is resonant with the feelings of all of us in the Woolf community.  His spirit will be forever with us.
I, like all of us, am bereft.

Karen
Sent from my iPad

On Jun 11, 2019, at 2:40 PM, Catherine Hollis via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>> wrote:
What very sad news. Thank you Paula for letting us know and for your beautiful tribute. I am so grateful that we all were able to spend so much time with him at Woolf conferences. His compassion and generosity will always be remembered.

Catherine

On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 11:01 AM Neverow, Vara S. via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>> wrote:

Thank you so much, Paula, for your beautiful remembrance of Cecil. I am so grateful that he was honored at the conference in the panel on Saturday morning.

Cecil's presence and his communications were always inspiring, and his vivacity, wisdom, humor and affection were priceless.

I am heartbroken.

Vara

Vara Neverow
Department of English
Southern Connecticut State University
New Haven, CT 06515
203-392-6717
neverowv1 at southernct.edu<mailto:neverowv1 at southernct.edu>

________________________________
From: Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces+neverowv1=southernct.edu at lists.osu.edu<mailto:southernct.edu at lists.osu.edu>> on behalf of Paula Maggio via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>>
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2019 1:34 PM
To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
Subject: [Vwoolf] Cecil Woolf

I am sharing the sad news that our beloved Cecil Woolf passed away Monday, June 10. I have posted a tribute to him on Blogging Woolf. Please feel free to share your own tributes and memories in the comments section below that post.
In memoriam to our dear Cecil Woolf: Mentor, friend, speaker, publisher
https://bloggingwoolf.wordpress.com/2019/06/11/in-memoriam-to-our-dear-cecil-woolf-mentor-friend-speaker-publisher/<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbloggingwoolf.wordpress.com%2F2019%2F06%2F11%2Fin-memoriam-to-our-dear-cecil-woolf-mentor-friend-speaker-publisher%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cneverowv1%40southernct.edu%7C31e5ba688dbb40464e9d08d6ee930b40%7C58736863d60e40ce95c60723c7eaaf67%7C0%7C0%7C636958712646512861&sdata=32JKgLsPq8oVZ70gqWve%2Buvx9%2BVrwrAblj4SsDH5VFE%3D&reserved=0>

Paula Maggio
Blogging Woolf

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--
Catherine W. Hollis, PhD
Instructor, Fall Program for Freshmen
U.C. Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720
hollisc at berkeley.edu<mailto:hollisc at berkeley.edu>
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