Congenial Spirits: The Selected Letters of Virginia Woolf »

The early decades of the 20th century saw the rise of the experimental novel, and few writers had more success with their experiments than Virginia Woolf. Her innovative approach as a novelist, critic, and biographer made her an author who is even more widely read today than she was in her own time.

Virginia Woolf was an inventive, witty correspondent, whether commenting on a domestic crisis, politics, or the roving of the writer's mind. Edited and with an Introduction by Joanne Trautmann Banks; Index.

Library Journal

This selection from the six volumes of Woolf's letters follows her from earliest childhood through the suicide note she left Leonard in March 1941. Woolf is usually relaxed and high-spirited in her sprightly, inventive, entertaining letters. She seems to be performing, and the performances vary from correspondent to correspondent. Twelve of the letters are new, four public letters to magazine editors are included for the first time, and ``among the new materials must be counted restoration of excerpts omitted from the complete edition for fear of hurting people.'' An engaging portrait of Woolf emerges from the letters (though one wonders how many engaging portraits of Woolf the world requires). Unfortunately, the editor has made cuts in most of the letters, a curious and aggravating policy.-- Keith Cushman, Univ. of North Carolina, Greensboro