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    The London Scene: Six Essays on London Life
    Unavailable
    The London Scene: Six Essays on London Life
    Unavailable
    The London Scene: Six Essays on London Life
    Ebook68 pages56 minutes

    The London Scene: Six Essays on London Life

    By Virginia Woolf

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Take a stroll through London with Virginia Woolf as your guide in this beautifully illustrated book.

    Virginia Woolf relished any opportunity for a stroll around London. She found great pleasure in observing the city and its people - noticing the subtle details that others often miss. In this collection of stunning essays, Woolf gives us an intimate tour of her beloved hometown. We venture through unfamiliar pockets of London and revisit its most famous landmarks; we smell the salty air of the East End docks and hear the echoing sounds inside the Houses of Parliament; Woolf transports us to the bustle of Oxford Street and the more peaceful moments on Hampstead Heath.

    Originally published bi-monthly in 1931 by Good Housekeeping, the essays in The London Scene exhibit Virginia Woolf at the height of her literary powers and present an unparalleled and meditative portrait of an extraordinary metropolis - capturing the London of the 1930s and also the eternal city we recognise today.

    ‘While it might not list the hottest restaurants and the newest boutique hotels, The London Scene gives us an amalgam of intelligence and beauty that few, if any, guidebooks provide.’ - Francine Prose

    ‘1930s London comes alive in these six evocative essays . . . a discerning, affectionate tour of her beloved city.’ - Washington Post
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDaunt Books
    Release dateNov 7, 2012
    ISBN9781907970436
    Unavailable
    The London Scene: Six Essays on London Life
    Author

    Virginia Woolf

    VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882–1941) was one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century. An admired literary critic, she authored many essays, letters, journals, and short stories in addition to her groundbreaking novels, including Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, and Orlando.

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    Reviews for The London Scene

    4/5

    53 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A delightful, slim compilation of Virginia Woolf's short essays about London and London life, originally published in Good Housekeeping magazine 1931-1932. A joy to read as her writing on London is so evocative.
    • 5/5
      'I love walking in London,' said Mrs Dalloway.'Really, it's better than walking in the country.'Mrs Dalloway by Virginia WoolfGiven the status of Virginia Woolf as an author in English literature, The London scene. Six essays on London life has received very little attention. This is all the more startling, as this small book provides a most lyrical and enticing description of the city of London, a city loved by the British and travellers alike. Moreover, London, as the capital of Great Britain, and, at that time, the empire at large, has always been a city filled to the brim with culture and literature, a well Woolf thankfully dips into.The London scene. Six essays on London life was published in the same year as her novel, The Waves, a mature work by an author known for her lyrical prose style. She had already published six novels, and her work was increasingly moving in the direction of essays and non-fiction. The writing of the six essays or articles about London was commissioned by Good Housekeeping, a women's magazine, which had launched its British edition in 1922. The essays were published in bi-monthly instalments, between December 1931 and November 1932. The first five essays were published in book form in 1981, but by that time the sixth essay was lost, until it was rediscovered at the University of Sussex in 2004. This prompted the Ecco Press to collect all six essays, and publish them for the first time in the United States in a small volume of just under 100 pages, with a gorgeous cover.The six essays are written as walks in London. As historical London has changed but little, is should be possible, almost, to retrace her steps and gaze up at towers, cathedrals and facades with one's own eyes. Then again, Virginia Wollf walking around London and describing the city provided an impressionistic image of Bloomsbury London. Besides the beautiful images she captured and framed with her mind, the essays provide a kaleidoscopic display of illusions and allusions of London and London's history or the Nineteenth and early Twentieth century.The first essay, "The docks of London" is perhaps not the most enticing, as even in Woolf's day the Thames estuary and the docks were becoming a derelict area, a messy fringe to the city, a wasteland too, of the literary imagination. However, the following essays bring the allure of London to full bloom. This contrast between the crudity of the docklands and the refinement of the City is intentional, as if the reader makes a transition from the leaden grey into the dazzling gold. In Virginia Woolf's prose, London is a warm place, a cosiness emphasized as she takes the reader into the homes of London's great writers, such as Dicken's house, Keats' house and Carlyle's house. However, Woolf's inimical style shines through in the haunting descriptions of statesmen's sculptures "gazing from white eyes". Haunting are also descriptions from Westminster Abbey, where "(f)rom every corner, from every wall, somebody leans or listens or bends forward as if about to speak."The London scene. Six essays on London life is not merely a book about London. We see London through Woolf's eyes, and through her eyes, we see Virginia Woolf.
    • 4/5
      This is a short collection of five essays about London: The Docks of London, Oxford Street Tide, Great Men's Houses, Abbeys and Cathedrals, and This is the House of Commons.These diverse stories give us an idea of how much time has passed since they were written, how much has changed, how much remains unchanged. Through Woolf's eyes, I can share her view of London, together with a mental image of the metamorphosis to the modern city.Woolf's lyrical prose is so enticing that the reader is happy to read the same page over and over before reluctantly moving on. About Westminster Abbey she writes "The company seems to be in full conclave. Gladstone starts forward and then Disraeli. From every corner, from every wall, somebody leans or listens or bends forward as if about to speak. The recumbent even seem to lie attentive, as if to rise next minute. Their hands nervously grasp their sceptres, their lips are compressed for a fleeting silence, their eyes lightly closed as if for a moment's thought." "Voice and organ vibrate wirily among the chasings and intricacies of the roof. The fine fans of stone that spread themselves to make a ceiling seem like bare boughs withered of all their leaves and about to toss in the wintry gale. But their austerity is beautifully softened. Lights and shadows are changing and conflicting every moment. Blue, gold and violet pass, dappling, quickening, fading. The grey stone, ancient as it is, changes like a live thing under the incessant ripple of changing light"
    • 4/5
      These six essays, written in 1931, were first published in Good Housekeeping in 1931-1932. The essays were inspired by Woolfs favorite walks in London. Her love of London is evident in all the essays. I found these essays more accessible than any of her novels that I've attempted. (I've started three, never getting very far before giving up).
    • 5/5
      An intimate look at London and Londoners from a writer who left us much, much too soon.
    • 4/5
      If you enjoyed Orlando you should enjoy this as well. Both are about Englishness and both, to a certain extent, literature.