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Updated July 8, 1997
Created July 8, 1997
(from Schulkind intro.) The book consists of entries roughly creating a chronological description of her life from Woolf’s unpublished autobiographical writings: -Reminiscences - written 1907 (age 25), an exercise, couched as a life of Vanessa -A Sketch of the Past- written 1938 (age 56), couched as her own autobiography Memoir Club Contributions -22 Hyde Park Gate - presented sometime 1920/21 (age 38-39) -Old Bloomsbury - presented 1921-22 (age 39-40) -Am I a Snob? - presented 1 Dec 36 (age 56) The Memoir Club was formed in 1920 by Molly MacCarthy, and included: Woolfs, Bells, Forster, Fry, Duncan Grant, Keynes, Desmond and Molly MacCarthy, Adrian, Lytton Strachey, and Saxon Sydney-Turner (roughly the same membership as the "Old Bloomsbury" group, minus the MacCarthies. In fact, Leonard says in his autobiography that these 13 were identical to Bloomsbury, but others (Rosenbaum) question this. [This club continued to meet well into the 1960s. led by Molly MacCarthy till 1946, then Vanessa Bell, then Quentin Bell, and finally Frances Partridge.] Purpose of Memoir Club: to read autobiographical papers: supposed to be without research and completely honest. Schulkind intro remarks on the difference in styles between "Sketch" and Memoir Club essays due to her audience. · The Memoir Club pieces "a sharper, more definite shape, a well known and predictable personalty, confronting a group of old friends" (16) in a witty, playful way (obviously intends to get some laughs); · a contrast to the more reflective, almost ego-less manner of "Sketch of the Past." Recurring theme in these is the contrast of · 22 Hyde Park Gate (Kensington, where she grew up), · and Bloomsbury It is a contrast between CONVENTION and INTELLECT; the life of society and the life of the mind.