Image: Virginia Woolf, ca. 1937. No information regarding photographer or date. The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature. "The photograph was a gift to the Berg by a Michael Brandon, Brooklyn, September 17, 1976.”Together at last!  Two Worthies from the Study, Jean Mills & Anne Fernald, and Isaac Gewirtz, Curator of NYPL's Berg Collection (and doctors all), will present three lectures this coming Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, in the South Court Auditorium at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, on the one and only Virginia Woolf, of whom I am afraid. 

No, not really, but she is a challenge.  To get in the mood, I checked out The Waves, for it fit in my pocket.  By page 10 I didn't think I could go on, but said to myself "Self, if the Queen of England can finish Ivy Compton-Burnett, you can soldier on." By page 30 I was hooked. Even though there is no plot, unless you count plenty of explorations of consciousness, reality and singularity/wholeness issues, Louis, Bernard, Jinny, Rhoda, Susan and Neville are very, very realized. 

But enough—taste a bit of the Great Modernist, from her First Common Reader, on the Elizabethan Play here.

If you come to the lectures, please say hello.  I'll be there handing out the programme and if you mention this blog, you'll get a free and very inconsequential gift.