Virginia Woolf And Vanessa Bell
On sale
14th July 2011
Price: £14.99
A moving and important book on the relationship between two remarkable sisters who jointly created the Bloomsbury Group
‘An outstanding work… one of the best books on Virginia Woolf to date’ Literary Review
‘Dunn’s unlayering of this complex relationship is subtle and far-reaching’ Sunday Times
‘An investigation into the dynamics of friendship and sibling rivalry, maternal solicitude and mutual need’ New York Times
‘A revealing pleasure’ Independent
This is the story of a deep and close relationship between two sisters – the writer Virginia Woolf and artist Vanessa Bell. Their influence over each other’s lives, their competitiveness, the fierce love they had for each other and total commitment to their work is laid out with subtlety and compassion. The thoughts, motives and actions of these two remarkable women at the heart of the Bloomsbury Group is revealed in all its intricacies in this exploration of their intertwined lives.
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Reviews
An outstanding work, and reading it is a source of real pleasure... one of the best books on Virginia Woolf to date
Her unlayering of this complex relationship is subtle and far-reaching... The wealth of the material makes possible some of the brilliant equations to be found in this book
[An] intriguing study of the relationship between the two sisters... an investigation into the dynamics of friendship and sibling rivalry, maternal solicitude and mutual need
Dunn plunges deep beneath the surface to the complicated emotions and personalities of these two women, illuminating them with great clarity and understanding
Dunn takes advantage of the voluminous letters, diaries, family papers and published writings of the Stephen/Woolf/Bell milieu in reconstructing a passionate and competitive sisterhood... [a] detailed portrait of their intimacy
Jane Dunn's astute account of their relationship is a revealing pleasure
With sensitivity and imagination, Dunn recreates the fascination, dependencies, competition, complicity, jealousies, the whole range of dynamics expressed in the pathologically close sibling relationship between two beautiful, talented, brilliant, intense, and creative women
Dunn is excellent on the many rivalries and hostilities between the sisters, and on Virginia's betrayal of Vanessa through her affair with Vanessa's husband, Clive Bell, while Vanessa was struggling to cope with their first baby. Virginia threatens to take over the book as she at times took over her sister's life: always cleverer, more talkative, wittier and with a greater gift for intimacy. But in the end Vanessa's impassivity, her enigmatic silence, hold their own against Virginia's flirtatiousness. Dunn rightly emphasises the obsessive depth of each sister's commitment to work
By presenting us with a double portrait, its two subjects seen in relation to each other rather than in isolation, we come so much nearer the living reality, in all its complexity, its double-sidedness, its light and shadow. This is one of the few books which allows me to believe that the author actually knew both my mother and my aunt, and I welcome it as deepening my understanding both of them and their relation to Bloomsbury
A sensitive and deeply interesting description of a relationship between two remarkable sisters who jointly created the Bloomsbury Group. I found Jane Dunn's account of their distinct but intertwined lives and personalities utterly absorbing