Edited by Helen Southworth
This multi-authored volume, newly available in paperback, focuses on Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press (1917-1941). Scholars from the UK and the US use previously unpublished archival materials and new methodological frameworks to explore the relationships forged by the Woolfs via the Press and to gauge the impact of their editorial choices on writing and culture. Combining literary criticism, book history, biography and sociology, the chapters weave together the stories of the lesser known authors, artists and press workers with the canonical names linked to the press following a 'rich, dialogic' forum or network.
A welcome and long-overdue examination...a valuable resource for scholarship on Virginia Woolf, modernist print culture, and modernist studies in general.
Through its richly detailed contributions, wide in scope, Leonard and Virginia Woolf, the Hofarth Press and the Networks of Modernism demonstrates that vital forces for change include variegated strands of artistry and revolution, and that these strands cannot in the end be separated when we consider Leonard, Virginia and the Hogarth Press.
Important reading not just for Woolf critics, but also for those more generally interested in the history of the book, modernist publishing, network theory, and cultural studies. And when its own dust jacket has long ago been discarded by those devourers of time (aka library shelving practices), these essays will remind us that what has been materially lost or hidden from view is well worth digging up, re-presenting, and crafting into new narratives that challenge the orthodox view.
These essays catalyze a vital critical dialogue about how the "real" world of publishing and book production reflexively shaped the Woolfs’ aesthetic and political worldviews... important reading not just for Woolf critics, but also for those more generally interested in the history of the book, modernist publishing, network theory, and cultural studies.