A few weeks later, orders began pouring in by the hundreds
for Kew Gardens. The Times Literary Supplement
had run a very favorable review of the book and now everyone was
rushing to purchase a copy. That fall, Night and Day was
finally published. Katherine Mansfield, Woolf's sometime friend,
reviewed it in a publication called The Athenaeum and gave it a
bad review, skewering Woolf for being too traditional and to wary
of risk-taking. Later, when Woolf's reputation was established,
this criticism would seem decidedly ironic. Virginia Woolf would
be one of the greatest literary risk-takers of the Twentieth Century.
In the spring of 1920, Woolf's next novel, Jacob's
Room began to take shape on paper. Woolf told Leonard
that she wanted Hogarth Press to publish this novel; she despised
taking her novels to Gerald Duckworth, despite his continued enthusiasm
for her work. With Woolf's novels now a part of their list, Hogarth
was publishing some of the best writers of the day: Gorki, Forster,
T.S. Eliot and Katherine Mansfield. Leonard, too, was busy finishing
up his own book, Empire and Commerce in Africa, and
had already started a new one titled Socialism and Cooperation. In
addition, he was also editing a monthly periodical called The
International Review. It was a lot of work, and Woolf
wondered if he could do it all.
A collection of Woolf's short stories, titled Monday
or Tuesday appeared in March and was not received well.
At the same time, rival and friend Lytton Strachey's stunning biography
of Queen Victoria was universally applauded. While Strachey's professional life
was progressing nicely, his personal life was complicated. He was
engaged in a messy ménage with Dora Carrington and Ralph Partridge,
a former Hogarth assistant. Dora Carrington was madly in love with
Lytton, who was in love with Ralph Partridge. Partridge was in love
with Dora Carrington. All three lived at Lytton's house. Woolf
found herself in the role of adviser to Lytton on this matter more
than once.
With Hogarth doing well, and Woolf and Leonard's own books selling
well, they were able to buy a new printing machine. On November
4, 1921, Woolf finished Jacob's Room and fell into
a dark depression. She spent the early months of 1921 in bed, almost an
invalid. As she rested and read, a story was tumbling around in her
head. It was a story, with a character, that had haunted her for
years. This character, Clarissa Dalloway, had made appearances
in The Voyage Out and some of Woolf's short stories.
When Kitty Maxse, Woolf and Vanessa's old friend and the reputed
model for Clarissa Dalloway, died in 1922 from a fall down a flight
of stairs (Woolf was convinced it was suicide), Woolf found her
inspiration to begin Mrs. Dalloway.
Jacob's Room was the first full-length
book that Hogarth published. It appeared October 22nd, 1922. Its
success signaled the beginning of Woolf's fame as a writer. Just
as Jacob's Room appeared, Woolf found herself itching
to get back to the bustling life of London. Life in boring Richmond
was too suburban and dull. She missed the stimulation of London
society and the company of her friends. Plus, her reputation was
growing and more and more people wanted her to grace their dinner
tables. However, Leonard remained firmly against the idea of returning
to London, convinced as he was of its ill effects on Woolf's health.
In 1922, Woolf decided to begin work on two books simultaneously.
One was a work of criticism; the other was a novel. These works
would later be titled The Common Reader and Mrs.
Dalloway. The next year, Woolf finally succeeded in wearing
Leonard down about the move back to London and that winter they
moved back to Bloomsbury. Hogarth Press now operated out of their
basement. Woolf worked on her books during the morning hours then spent
the afternoon at the press with Leonard and his assistants. In April
1925, The Common Reader was published. A month
later, Mrs. Dalloway was published. Both were
raging successes and critical triumphs.
The three years between 1925 and 1928 were fruitful for
Woolf professionally. She finished Mrs. Dalloway, and The
Common Reader; she published To the Lighthouse, and
began planning The Waves. Yet she was running
herself ragged and soon fell into one of her bouts with depression
and mania. She had an episode at a family gathering in August 1925,
which marked the beginning of a long, debilitating illness, which
she would not come out of until 1926.
To make a dark period even darker, Woolf discovered that
her new friend Vita Sackville-West was leaving with her husband,
a Counsellor at the British Embassy in what was then called Persia, for
Tehran. Woolf's friendship with Vita was charged with erotic undertones.
Vita was a beautiful, forceful woman who was a writer as well as
a great admirer of Woolf's talent. She was also a lesbian, and
although Woolf clearly had feelings for Vita, she was still in love with
her husband Leonard. Nevertheless, Woolf's nephew Quentin Bell
says that Woolf and Vita had a love affair between 1925 and 1929
off and on. Although there had been hints of this kind of relationship
between Woolf and Katherine Mansfield, the letters Vita and Woolf
sent to each other speak to the deep feelings of mutual romantic
love.
