Virginia Woolf, Social Class, & Her Servants

À propos lecture discussion locating Virginia Woolf in her upper-middle level on the British class system, as a means of better appreciating her specific literary art, "Woolf's Servants get their Due" is the title of an interview, linked from Arts & Letters Daily, with author Alison Light on her new book Mrs. Woolf and the Servants: An Intimate History of Domestic Life in Bloomsbury.

Q. How did you become interested in Woolf's servants?
A. By reading Woolf's diaries, which I love, but which contain appalling references to the servants: Lottie Hope or Nellie Boxall being compared to animals and vermin. Woolf's disgust riveted me. I also wondered why she and Boxall had such rows. Then the fact that my grandmother was in service and my mother's sisters started out in service before the Second World War.

Several additional journals have published articles on what s obviously perceived as a compelling aspect of Virgina Woolf's life & letters.

• New York Times: "A Maid of One's Own"
• The Nation: "The Horror of Dirt: Virginia Woolf and Her Servants"
• The Daily Telegraph: "The Women Behind Mrs. Woolf"