Mrs. Woolf and the Servants: An Intimate History of Domestic Life in Bloomsbury

by Alison Light

Book Overview

Virginia Woolf was a feminist and a bohemian but without her servants - cooking, cleaning and keeping house - she might never have managed to write. Mrs Woolf and The Servants explores the hidden... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 159691694X
• ISBN13: 9781596916944
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Length: 376 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.4" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

A "backstage" view of Virginia Woolf

This was a very interesting look at the day to day life of Virginia Woolf. I really enjoyed the stories of the women who made Woolf's household work so she could write without having to stop to open a can of soup. It's a wonderful look at a certain level of British society and after all Woolf was of the upper class and she was used to having servants. I particularly enjoyed the story of the one woman who ended up working for Charles Laughton and his wife and endorsed a "cooker" or stove in an ad after she was let go by Woolf who found her just too much of a problem. This book helps put Virginia Woolf's feet on the ground and it was a very refreshing look. I have recommended this book to a good number of people. It's a wonderful bit of social and literary history.

Fascinating look at Victorian England

This book is a fascinating look at the lives of servants and those they worked for in the Victorian era and on, through the eyes of Virginia Woolf and her Bloomsbury crowd. I have read other books about Woolf, including Shaggy Muses: The Dogs Who Inspired Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edith Wharton, and Emily Brontë by Maureen Adams, which I also found fascinating. And other books about life in Victorian England including The Victorian House by Judith Flanders, which I also recommend. I don't know enough about Woolf to judge Alison Light's research skills, but I liked her writing style. I liked learning more about Woolf's life by seeing how she interacted with her servants. I thought the last fifty pages were too detailed about what happened to each servant from the time Woolf died until each of them died. Ho-hum. I couldn't keep all those women straight, they felt interchangeable, which in itself is a statement on the servant issue.

Mrs. Woolf

For compulsive readers of Virginia Woolf. If you have been intrigued for years over the many references to Virginia`s "servant problem" in her diaries and letters, this is the book to read. It throws new light on middle-class families in Victorian times, and right through WWI. Questions are answered, secrets are revealed, and there is a surprise at the end. I liked it very much.

Mrs Woolfe may disappoint but the servants do not

I loved this book; it read like a novel on a topic that is fascinating and eye opening. My mother and her 5 sisters all came to the US from Ireland in the 1920s and worked as servants for the rich on Beacon Hill, in Boston. Their memories always seemed a bit "off" to me and they never really got into details of their experiences (except for one who worked for a very prominent politician), even when probed. They "laughed" about it a little too much, similar to how the servants, many years later, recalled their days in service, and now I understand that was because otherwise they might cry. It also helps to explain why my mother bent over backwards for the people who worked for her. Even though they were there to clean and iron my mother would work along side of them and my father, a doctor, would say "don't stick your nose in the air-these people are the salt of the earth and your bread and butter". There is no doubt in my mind that my mother and aunts had many of the same situations as the servants in this extremely well written book. (If only The Help by Kathryn Stockett had been as informative and well crafted.) I wish my mother was around now because I think I would ask better questions of her. You don't have to be a Virginia Woofe fan, and I am even less now than ever, to enjoy this book.

Well Researched, but also Interesting

Alison Light clearly does her homework. "Mrs. Woolf and the Servants" is absolutely loaded with the products of her very thorough research. Not only does she tell us as much as humanly possible about the various servants who worked for Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, and others of the Bloomsbury set, but she tells us about the lives of their parents, as well. Light strives to create a clear picture of these servants, including where they came from, how they lived, and how their lives drew to a close. In addition, she pays a good deal of attention to the conditions of life and stratification along class structure in England during the early 1900's. Initially, I was worried that the book would prove to be too dry, as some books which prove to be information dumps can be. Thankfully, Light paints vivid portraits of these famous (and not so famous) figures, bringing them to life while keeping the reader's interest. My main criticism of the book consists of there being occasionally too much information. We don't necessarily need to know the smallest details of the lives of these servants' parents. In addition, Light does stray away from the main topic of domestic servants and simply focus on Virginia Woolf for a good portion. Since my main attraction to this book was my thirst for all things Virginia Woolf, I appreciated that. However, those looking simply for a critical analysis of domestic service might not be as pleased. Light certainly goes above and beyond in her approach to discovering exactly what Woolf's view of domestic service was. Not only does she turn to diaries, correspondence, and interviews for her information, but she goes so far as to do her own interpretation of servants in Woolf's literary work in a manner that is well thought out and truly revealing of the famous writer. Whether you're interested in England's history of household servants or solely here for the Virginia Woolf insight, I definitely recommend this book.