Modernist Lives: Biography and Autobiography at Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press

Description

Focusing on the biographies and autobiographies published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press from 1917-1946, Claire Battershill shows the importance of publishing history in understanding modernist literary work and culture. Modernist Lives draws on archival material from the Hogarth Press Business Archive and first editions from the Virginia Woolf Collection at the E. J. Pratt Library to show how the Woolfs' literary theories were expressed in all aspects of their publishing: their marketing strategies, editorial practice and the literary composition of their acquisitions. Featuring the works of figures such as Christopher Isherwood, Henry Green, Viola Tree, Vita Sackville-West and the Woolf's themselves, Battershill illuminates the history of Hogarth books from their composition to their reception by readers and critics. Cover Half-title Title Copyright Contents List of Illustrations Editorial Preface to Historicizing Modernism Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction 1. ‘Works of Merit’: What the Hogarth Press Published (1917–1946) Beyond Bloomsbury Quantifying the publisher’s list Types of books 2. ‘A Fig for Literature! This Is Life’: The Hogarth Press ‘Books on Tolstoi’ (1920–1924) ‘Carelessly jotted down’: Maxim Gorky’s biographical method The Autobiography of Countess Sophie Tolstoy Tolstoi’s Love Letters Talks with Tolstoi 3. Elastic Categories: Debates about Biography and Autobiography (1923–1929) What was new about ‘The New Biography’? Leonard Woolf and the value of true stories Harold Nicolson at the Hogarth Press Lytton Strachey’s ‘haphazard visions’ 4. Marketing, Seriousness and Invention: Orlando (1928), Flush (1933) and Roger Fry (1940) ‘No one wants biography’: Classifying Orlando ‘Not a poet but a red cocker spaniel’: Flush and the problem of seriousness Moments of being in Roger Fry 5. Tufty Eyebrows and Salty Countenances: The Hogarth Press Biography Series (1934–1937) Biographies through the Eyes of Contemporaries World-Makers and World-Shakers 6. The Reticent Autobiografictions of Henry Green and Christopher Isherwood (1938–1940) Autobiografiction John Lehmann and the new face of the Hogarth Press ‘Everyone must be his own guinea pig’: Christopher Isherwood’s Lions and Shadows Fears of libel and the publishing of Goodbye to Berlin ‘A long intimacy between strangers’: Henry Green’s Pack My Bag Conclusion: The Legacy of the Hogarth Press Appendix A: List of Biographies and Autobiographies and Genre Categorizations Appendix B: List Prices, Sales Figures for the First Six Months, Print Run Numbers, and Profit and Loss Figures Notes Works Cited Index