[Vwoolf] Virginia Woolf's marked copies of her books?

[Stuart N. Clarke]

I am not aware of the differences in the reset edition of Mrs Dalloway in 1942, but it was reset because of wartime requirements:

"some of Woolf’s books that Leonard decided had to be reprinted would have resulted in a profligate use of the paper quota.  Mrs. Dalloway appears to have been an unfortunate example.  When it was published in 1925, it ran to 294 pages; my sample page (177) has 223 words.  Owing to the paper shortage, Leonard must have decided in 1941 to have it reset, reducing it to 252 pages; my sample page (149), which describes almost the same scene as the corresponding sample page in the first edition, has 270 words.  It was published early in 1942 and therefore should have had 323 words to the page, but it would not have needed to comply with the Agreement as the typesetting would have begun before 1 January 1942; it does not carry the economy declaration.  In 1946, Chatto & Windus ‘took under its management the Hogarth Press’ (Warner 23) and decided to issue Mrs. Dalloway under its Zodiac Press imprint.  It is hard to believe nowadays, when labour costs so much and goods so comparatively little, that the novel had to be reset once again, so that it could be printed in 1947 ‘in complete conformity with the authorised economy standards’ ([4]).  Now it was reduced to 216 pages of a slightly larger size than in 1942, and my sample page (129) reaches the target with 322 words." (VWB no. 51, p. 33)

Someone (Leonard? John Lehmann?) would have found a copy of Mrs D – hopefully the 2nd imp., but more likely the Uniform of 1929 or its reprint of 1933 (I haven’t seen a copy, but it was probably the last time ‘destestable’ appeared) – and chucked it over to the printers of the Garden City Press in Letchworth, Herts (where the Hogarth Press itself was now located), and told to get on with it.  Someone might just possibly have remembered an additional correction or corrections (kept in a folder, even), and someone, hopefully, would have checked the text when it came back from the printers.  Someone must have noticed ‘destestable’.  It’s wartime, but this is probably how it would have happened in peacetime, too.  (For a considerable number of mistakes in VW’s essays collected in Granite and Rainbow (1958), see VWB no. 51, pp. 35-6.)

B. J. Kirkpatrick told me that she had visited a printer’s, and wondered how any book got produced correctly!

By the way, by comparing the 1942 text with the 1st edn, the 2nd imp., and the 1929 Uniform, you may be able to deduce which was used to produce that new 1942 edn.

Stuart

-----Original Message----- 
From: Edward Mendelson via Vwoolf 
Sent: Friday, July 26, 2024 1:47 PM 
To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu 
Subject: [Vwoolf] Virginia Woolf's marked copies of her books? 

Two copies of The Voyage Out marked by the author for revision are known to exist. Does anyone know where marked copies might be of her other books? I’m asking in the hope that a marked copy might exist that would give some evidence for the authority (if any) for the changes made in the reset edition of Mrs Dalloway in 1942. My guess is that no such copy is known, or we would all know about it, but it seemed to be worth asking. All information will be gratefully received.
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