Typed Letter signed to her nephew, Quentin Bell.

Item Details

London:, 10 November [1933].

Very good.

8 ½ x 10 ½ in. Single leaf, two pages, approx. 660 words across both sides of a blue sheet, with approximately 32 autograph corrections (one word in her hand plus numerous typographical changes). Slight creasing at quarter folds. Likely paper-clip rust stain, top left corner of first page.

The letter is to her nephew, Quentin Bell (1910-1996), who would have been only twenty-three at the time. It concerns her daily activities in the company of fellow members of the Bloomsbury circle. It primarily speaks to her sister Vanessa's aeronautical adventures, which Virginia found quite upsetting, and a drunken dinner, attended by many Bloomsburyites, including Duncan Grant, Molly MacCarthy, and E.M. Forster (“Morgan” to his friends), Clive Bell, Leonard Woolf, and perhaps others. The letter also mentions Roger Fry, Julian Bell, Lady Ottoline Morell, Francis Birell, and others who were either members of the circle or close associates. It also mentions Woolf's father, Leslie Stephen (1832-1904), author, critic, historian, Alpine mountaineer, noted agnostic and first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography.

The letter begins with the statement, "Well, this has been a very agitating week, waiting for aeroplanes to settle. Nessa [Vanessa Bell] seems to have flow around Paris in the fog – and then she mounted into the sun, and then she suddenly saw the Channel beneath her, and Heaven on top and earth below – oh how I envy her, but never never I hope will she fly again." Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), of course, was very close to her sister Vanessa (1879-1961), who was a brilliant artist and designer, who illustrated most of Virginia's dust jackets. That friendship extended to Vanessa's partners, Clive Bell and Duncan Grant, and also to her three children, Julian, Quentin, and Angelica, with whom she was always in contact.

In speaking Vanessa's flight, Virginia mentions her flying over the Alps and continues, "But she says our ancestral mountains rather appeal to her – she begins to feel what father felt – noble, solitary, severe. I must come and see them." She finds them "more beautiful than any earth scape."

Other topics touched upon in the letter include a recent pity hire at Hogarth Press (“She’s the size of a robin and has the mind of a lovely snowball”), the inevitability of dental appointments (“Of course I have to go – so will all mankind all her life”), and a social call with an old friend suffering memory loss (“One has to say I am the wife of Leobard Woolf [sic], and the daughter of Leslie Stephen. Then he remembers exactly what father said in the year 1880”). Finally, she asks Quentin, "Are there any books you want? If so you have only to speak.”

Overall this is a charming and loving letter that captures some of the vibrancy of the later Bloomsbury period.

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