In early 1926, Woolf was coming out of her depression.
Things were going so well as she wrote the novel To the
Lighthouse. The book, widely considered to be a masterpiece,
was published on May 5, 1927. With the publication of To
the Lighthouse and, later, The Waves, Woolf
established herself firmly as one of the leading Modernist voices.
In a world that was fundamentally different, fractured and in upheaval,
it seemed that writers and artists had to rethink the way they
presented their art to the world. Modernism experimented with presentation,
and Woolf was one of the movement's prominent writers. Contemporaries
like James Joyce, T.S. Eliot and D.H. Lawrence were also trying
to turn form upside down and inside out.
When To the Lighthouse appeared, it was
a critical success, but it was also a popular book, selling quite
well. It sold well enough that Woolf was able to buy a car. In
1927 she began working on a fanciful novel called Orlando which
was about a hero/heroine whose gender changed throughout the narrative.
Orlando's adventures were inspired by Vita Sackville-West's. This
was a happy period for Woolf, who was basking in the success of
her last book and the ease of the novel she was now writing. Orlando was
finished in May of 1928. Following the completion of this book,
Woolf began preparing a series of lectures that she was scheduled
to deliver at Cambridge that October. These lectures centered on
the topic of women, women writers and the opportunities that must
be afforded to the gifted female writer if she is to produce great
literature-namely, a room of her own. When Orlando was
published, it sold exceptionally well, buffeted by the critical
acclaim of To the Lighthouse. After a trip to
Berlin, accompanied by Vanessa and Leonard, Woolf became sick again.
She was laid up for six weeks, unable to work.
In 1929, Hogarth Press published Woolf's Cambridge lectures under
the title of A Room of One's Own. In this slender
book, Woolf argues that social and economic barriers are the only
things keeping women writers from the acclaim they deserve. The
best artists, she argues, are androgynous.
Meanwhile, Vanessa Bell was still painting, but was feeling
overshadowed not only by her famous sister, but also by her boyfriend, painter
Duncan Grant. The sisters continued to see each other nearly every
day, however. Woolf began working on her most difficult and most
celebrated novel, The Waves, which she was, at
this time, still calling Moths. In January and
February 1930, she was flying through page after page. But her
work was interrupted by the appearance in her life of seventy-year-old
Ethel Smyth, a vivacious, demanding, unusual old woman who was
madly in love with Woolf-and may have been even before meeting
her (she was an avid fan of Woolf's fiction.) Ethel Smyth was a
fascinating woman and Woolf enjoyed her company, but was exhausted
by her demands for attention. What was most maddening was the effect
Smyth had on the composition of The Waves. Woolf
had written so much so quickly, and now she felt immobilized by
distractions.
In October, Woolf and Leonard, overwhelmed by the work
Hogarth Press demanded in order to run well, briefly considered
putting an end to the whole endeavor. It simply took up too much
time. However, Leonard was very much attached to the venture and found
it difficult to close up shop. He hired another assistant (the Woolfs
had gone through a succession of assistants during the short history
of Hogarth) named John Lehmann. Lehmann was a friend of the Woolfs'
nephew Julian Bell, and it was through him that Woolf and Leonard
met young writers like Christopher Isherwood, C. Day Lewis and
W.H. Auden.
On February 7, 1931, Woolf finished what most literary
critics believe to be her best work. After giving the finished
manuscript of The Waves to Leonard for editing,
Woolf began working on a lighter book called Flush. This
book purported to be a biography of the poet Elizabeth Barrett
Browning's dog. In August, Woolf bravely faced the galleys of The
Waves and that fall it was published. Woolf, as usual,
took to her bed, fearful of the public response to her book.
