The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf was the first novel by this iconic English author, published in Britain in 1915 and in the U.S. in 1920. Written at a point when Woolf was suffering from an acute period of mental illness during which there was a suicide attempt, the novel proceeded painfully slowly.
Nevertheless, it showed all the promise of her later work that would include stream of consciousness writing and themes of sexuality and death.
The final work was over-edited; her publisher felt that her commentary on British politics was too pointed and that it could nip her career in the bud. Read More→
Excerpted from Writers and Writing by Robert van Gelder, 1946. An interview with Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, the author of The Yearling and Cross Creek, who discusses her way of life and methods of work. This interview was conducted on November 30, 1941:
“Writing,” said Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, “is agony. I stay at my typewriter for eight hours every day when I’m working and keep as free as possible from all distractions for the rest of the day. I aim to do six pages a day but I’m satisfied with three. Often there are only a few lines to show.” Read More→
Excerpted from Writers and Writing by Robert van Gelder, 1946. A short story writer of exceptional talent talks of her work – June 14, 1942: Eudora Welty said that when she was younger she was very much interested in herself and always projected herself into her stories.
“The stories were awful. I’m from Jackson, Mississippi, and never had been much of anywhere else, but the action in my stories took place in Paris. They were awful. I remember the first line in one of them: ‘Monsieur Boule deposited a delicate dagger in Mademoiselle’s left side and departed with a poised immediacy.’ Read More→
Louisa May Alcott (1832 – 1888) imparted wisdom in her fiction as well as in her personal writings and interviews. Here’s a sampling of life lessons from Louisa May Alcott, a woman who worked hard and loved her family fiercely, even as she struggled with her health. We can all learn from her!
Best known for Little Women, she conducted her career as a professional determined to profit from her pen. In her life and writings, Alcott promoted women’s rights and campaigned for women’s suffrage.
Her views were espoused by her lead characters, strong young women who wanted more from life than to get married and have babies. She and her family were ardent abolitionists, a view that wasn’t as widely accepted in Massachusetts as one might think. Read More→
Louisa May Alcott’s Obituary, originally published in the New York Tribune, March 7, 1888: BOSTON, Mass., March 6 – Miss Louisa M. Alcott Following her Father to the Grave — Cold Quickly Develops into Spinal Meningitis
Miss Louisa May Alcott died this morning. Coming so soon after the death of her father the suddenly announced decease of Miss Alcott brings a double sorrow to the many friends of the family.”
For a long time Miss Alcott has been ill, suffering from nervous prostration. Last autumn, placing herself under the charge of Dr. Green of Columbus Avenue, she appeared to be improving and afterward went to Dunreath Place at the Highlands to live temporarily with Dr. Lawrence. Read More→
Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott is a collection of four novellas that reveal another side of the author best known for Little Women.
Louisa May Alcott started her writing career with “blood and thunder” tales that evidently, she rather enjoyed producing, even as they helped her make the money she so needed to earn as a way to support her family.
Each of these stories features sharp-witted, outspoken women. Alcott manages to give each tale a twist, and imbues them with suspense and irony. Four stories are included in this edition, although Alcott wrote several more Gothic tales.
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Following is an excerpt from the preface of The Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin, in which she discusses why she wrote this 1976 collection of erotica, mainly aimed at a female audience:
“At the time (1941) we were all writing erotica at a dollar a page, I realized that for centuries we had only one model for this literary genre — the writing of man. I was already conscious of a difference between the masculine and feminine treatment of sexual experience.
I know that there was a great disparity between Henry Miller’s explicitness and my ambiguities — between his humorous, Rabelasian view of sex and my poetic descriptions of sexual relationships in the unpublished portions of the Diary. Read More→
Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940) was Willa Cather’s last novel. It was the only book the Virginia-born author set in her home state. It was generally not as well-received as many of her other works, and today, is not as widely known or studied.
An actual incident from Cather’s family history provided the seed of the story, which concerns the troubled marriage of Henry and Sapphira Colbert, who own and operate a small farm and mill near Winchester, Virginia, before the years of the Civil War.
Sapphira, an unhappy and ill middle-aged woman, suspects that her husband is intimately involved with Nancy, a pretty young mixed-race enslaved female of the household. Read More→
