[Vwoolf] India in Mrs Dalloway. Oxford World’s Classics

[Trudi Tate]

Thanks to Harish Trivedi for the very interesting article about Mrs Dalloway and India.

 I have edited the new Oxford World’s Classics edition of Mrs D, published a couple of weeks ago. In the introduction, I discuss the importance of India in the novel. There is more work to do on this important topic. For example, it’s useful to know what was in the British newspapers about India in the early 1920s - The Times had several articles every week about unrest and uprisings (hostile to the independence movements); the weekly New Statesman had articles most weeks and was more sympathetic to the independence movement.

Leonard Woolf wrote a policy document arguing that independence for India and Ceylon should be facilitated in the 1920s. This was adopted as Labour Party policy but not enacted - LW says partly bc Labour wasn’t in power for long enough and partly bc the Labour leader wasn’t interested to pursue the matter. LW sees the failure to decolonise after the FWW as a catastrophe for millions of people.

Readers in 1925 didn’t need the unrest in India spelled out in Mrs D - they were very aware of it. It is mentioned by Lady B a couple of times and Peter refers to the Conservative duffers on India.
These brief refs would have been very resonant to VW’s readers in the 1920s. The context needs to be rediscovered by later readers.

Thanks again for raising this important topic, Harish.



Dr Trudi Tate
Emeritus Fellow
Clare Hall
University of Cambridge
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