Flush: A Biography

By Virginia Woolf, Ana Ban, Virginia Wolf

Book Overview

Woolf's best-selling spoof biography of the poet Elizabeth Barrett-Browning's lap dog, Flush, has until recently received relatively little serious critical attention. Flush: A Biography has been read as an allegory of class war, lesbian love, the plight of women writers, and much else besides. In the context of the recent rise in animal studies, this work is ripe for reappraisal. The present essay argues for the novel's significant contribution to the understanding, in Woolf's era and our own, of pressing questions concerning animality in relation to writing, gender and feminism. Woolf's 'little brown dog' speaks to some notorious feminist antivivisectionist cultural works and political interventions in the first decades of the twentieth-century as well as to more recent feminist philosophical interests in animality, and canine animality in particular. (Wiley Online library)

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1618952951
• ISBN13: 9781618952950
• Release Date: July 2018
• Publisher: Bibliotech Press
• Length: 126 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Perfect Novella and a Fun Read

Woolf has 16 major works and I think this is one of her funnier works. It would be a good place to start reading Woolf's works. Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941) was a well known writer, critic, feminist, and publisher. As background information, I read most of her work starting with her first novel "The Voyage Out" published in 1915, skipped her second novel - which is considered to be a flop, Night and Day from 1919 - and then read "Jacob's Room," her third, then went on and read "Mrs. Dalloway," her fourth, and next read "To The Lighthouse," etc. Also, I read some of Woolf's non-fiction and put together a Listmania list on Virginia Woolf. What is her best work? That is a hard question to answer, but overall one I think her novel "To The Lighthouse" is a masterpiece. Her best non-fiction is "A Room of One's Own." I like the Oxford version of the latter published along with "Three Guineas." But, the present novel or novella is fascinating and a fun way to get to know Woolf. Books to do not have to be long to be a great story or novel, and I point to Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Ilych" as an example. Is the present book equal to that? Of, course not but the present work is very entertaining. It is a fun read which takes about two hours. Most will be impressed and appreciate Woolf's writing ability. It is a first person fictional narrative by a dog called Flush, a real dog that was owned by Elizabeth Barrett-Robert Browning. The real dog was stolen three times, but in the novella it is compressed into a story of one theft. Woolf opens the novel sounding as if the book is non-fiction. After a few pages, it slips into the narrative form with the dog describing his life. She explores the dog's relation to the owner, and tells us what it is like to be a dog. The dog is very sensitive to the moods of the owner, and it is protective and becomes jealous on various occasions. One might say that Woolf gives the dog a soul. Does it all have a deeper meaning? Yes, it tells us about loyalty and love. This is a fun read.

Puppy Love

I really enjoyed this book. I have read a lot of Woolfs work. This little book is easily equal to her more critically acclaimed works like 'To the Lighthouse'. This story allows Woolf to be more playful than in any of the other piece she has done. The mix of fiction/ biography allows her to tell a story filled with heroes and villians that makes the book like an adult fairy tale. By the end I was fully engaged and completely consumed by Flush and his Life. This is a must for any fan of Woolf or anyone who has a love for animals.

A wonderful story.

One of my very favorite reads this year. This is a biography of sorts - and a fiction of sorts. It's the story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's cocker spanial Flush. An absolute charmer. This is one of those volumes that can truly be read in a single setting - it is possessed of a free flowing lyric quality often absent in this writer's more cerebral fictions. Still, this isn't a slight piece by any means, but a richly detailed work of the imagination by one of the great literary minds of the past century. This is the kind of book you'll want to recommend to all your friends.

Voginia Woolf's masterpeice!

I LOVED this book. It was recommended to me by my best friend after she read it, and, believe me, it was worth it.I had a lot of trouble finding the book, but that was OK. It was a fantastic storey, and I really thought that some of the paragraphs were beautifully written. I also have a red cocker spaniel, just like the one on the cover of the Penguins Classics series cover, and I found myself looking at my dog to see if the descriptions and facts given were right. They were. What was the most remarkable thing was that this book was written based on a poem of Flush. ~Gina~