For all practical purposes you only need one link - to the VW Web. This outstanding site, constantly expanding and updated, will take you to everything available on the net relevant to Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury.
There is a Distance Learning Project on 'A Room of One's Own', which contains a dated list of her publications, a timeline of dates in her life, and a gallery of photographs and paintings of VW.Should you want to enter into discussion about Virginia Woolf, or have specific questions about her or her work not readily answered by the standard references, you should join the VWOOLF list. Send an email to 'listproc@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu' and in the body of the message write:
subscribe VWOOLF your first name your second name
and nothing else!
The list is dominated by US academics, a few of whom write in impenetrable jargon. Don't be put off! They are friendly to beginners and amateurs. Someone will know the answer to even the most obscure query, and you may even provoke a lively discussion.
The International Virginia Woolf Society gives details of the various Virginia Woolf societies - a British one was formed recently - and information about academic conferences and recent academic publications.
If you want to know more about manic-depressive psychosis consult the excellent booklet by Erika Hillard at Internet Mental Health.
For Creativity in relation to bipolar disorders, and for more general information on all aspects of bipolar disorder, go to the excellent Bipolar Digest
Of making books about Virginia Woolf there seems to be no end. I have made no attempt to cover her writing unless it is autobiographical, and I have excluded all her fiction and all literary criticism about it. Even so , the sources, both primary and secondary, are abundant.
The most up-to-date and authoritative book on Virginia Woolf's illness is Thomas Caramagno's Flight of the Mind. Caramagno is a professor of English but has acquired a formidable knowledge of manic-depressive illness that would put many psychiatrists to shame. He covers most of the ground in this site, and has added to our knowledge of the family history. If you want to find details of how her illness affected her fiction you will find it discussed in great detail here.
For manic -depressive psychosis and creativity, Kay Jamison's Touched with Fire - Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament is written by an acknowledged authority, and is up-to-date and very readable. Her text with F.K. Goodwin: Manic-Depressive Illness is a comprehensive reference.
Anyone wanting to pursue her life should start with Quentin Bell's two-volume biography, now available in a revised edition, well-written by her nephew, and authoritative. There are other good biographies, more up to date, or more detailed on various aspects, but this is the one to start with.
Then move on to her five volumes of diaries, available in paperbacks (Penguin). These have some claim to be the best diaries of the twentieth century, and have been meticulously edited by Anne Olivier Bell. The letters are the next best primary source, again vastly entertaining throughout six volumes, and again fortunate in their editor, Nigel Nicolson. A one-volume selection is available.Thereafter - and the above will keep you busy for some time! - the recollections of various friends, edited by Joan Noble, are excellent on her personality. Many, many other friends have written about her, and there are five volumes of autobiography by her husband, Leonard.
For any specific queries about her life, work, friends, places,etc., turn first to Mark Hussey's Virginia Woolf - A to Z, Oxford UP, 1996, which is up-to-date, comprehensive, concise and accurate, and has a huge bibliography, divided into various subsections.
If all this becomes too daunting, seek light relief in Regina Marler's 'Bloomsbury Pie', an irreverent but perspicacious review of the Bloomsbury Industry up to 1997.
Andreasen, Nancy C. Creativity and Mental Illness. Prevalence rates in writers and their first degree relatives. Am J Psychiat, 1987, 144:10, 1288-1292
Annan, Noel Gilroy Leslie Stephen, The Godless Victorian London, MacGibbon and Kee, 1951 and 1984 Anon Who Was Who, 1916-1928. Sir George Savage Blodgett, Harriet Centuries of Female Days, Rutgers Univ Press, 1988 Caramagno, Thomas. Manic-depressive Psychosis and Critical Approaches to VW's Life and Work: PMLA. 1988, 103,1. 10-23Caramagno, Thomas C: The Flight of the Mind: Virginia Woolf's Art and Manic-Depressive Psychosis. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1992
Chase, Kathleen : Legend and Legacy: some Bloomsbury Diaries: World Literature Today, 1967,61:2, 230-233, Oklahoma Craig, Maurice: Psychological Medicine. 3rd Edn. London, J and A Churchill.
DeSalvo, Louise: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on her Life and Work. The Womans Press, 1989.
Dinnage, Rosemary : Times Literary Supplement,1980, 18th April Dobbs, Brian: Dear Diary...: Some Studies in Self-interest London, Hamish Hamilton, 1974 Dunn Jane A Very Close Conspiracy - Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf : Jonathan Cape, London 1990 Feinstein Sherman C Why they were afraid of VW: perspectives on juvenile manic-depressive illness ; Annals Am. Soc. for Adolesc.Psychiatry, 8 , Chicago UP, 1980 Gindin J Virginia Woolf and Biography , Biography 4, Spring 1981 Goldstein, Jan Ellen The Woolf's response to Freud: water-spiders, singing canries, and the second apple : Psychoanalytic Quarterly,1974,43,438-476Goodwin FK and Jamison KR Manic-Depressive Illness: NY, Oxford University Press, 1990
Griffin, G Virginia Woolf and autobiography : Biography 4, Spring 1981 Hare, EH Existential Theory of Psychiatry : BMJ, 1982,284, 1313-4 Hill, Katherine C. Virginia Woolf and Leslie Stephen: History and Literary Revolution: PMLA, 1982,97,351-362Hussey, Mark: Virginia Woolf - A to Z. Oxford University Press, 1996
Hyman, Virginia Concealment and Disclosure in Sir Leslie Stephen's Mausoleum Book: Biography III, p127Jalland, Pat: Octavia Wilberforce. The autobiography of a pioneer woman doctor. Cassell, 1989
Jamison, Kay R.: Mood disorders and patterns of creativity in British writers and artists. Psychiatry,1989, 52, 125-134.Jamison, Kay R.: Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. Free Press, 1993
Kamiya Miyeko Virginia Woolf:An outline of a study on her personality, illness, work : Confinia Psychiatrica(Basel) 1965 8 189-204
Kennedy Richard: A Boy at the Hogarth Press: Penguin 1978 Kenney, Susan M : Virginia Woolf and the Art of Madness Massachusetts Review: 1982,23,161-185King, James; Virginia Woolf. Hamish Hamilton, London,1994
Lee, Hermione: Virginia Woolf. Chatto and Windus, London.1996
Love, Jean O.: Virginia Woolf: Sources of Madness and Art: Berkeley, Univ of California Press, 1977Ludwig, Arnold M.: The Price of Greatness: Resolving the Creativity and Madness Controversy. Guilford Press, 1995
Marcus, Jane: Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury; a centenary celebration: Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1987
Marler, Regina: Bloomsbury Pie. 1997
McLaurin, Allen : Virginia Woolf: The Echoes Enslaved : Cambridge UP 1973 Meisel,P and Kendrick, W (Eds) : Bloomsbury/Freud; the letters of James and Alix Strachey 1924-1925: Chatto and Windus, London, 1986 Mepham J: Trained to silence: London Review of Books, 1980, 20/11-4/12 Morizot, Carol Ann: Just this side of madness: creativity and the drive to create: Houston: Harold, 1978 Morrell, Otteline ed Gathorne-Hardy, R.: Ottoline at Garsington: Memoirs of Lady Ottoline Morrell, 1915-1918 Nicolson Nigel(Ed) Letters of Virginia Woolf Vol 2 Nicolson, Nigel Portrait of a Marriage Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973Noble, Joan R.(Ed.): Recollections of Virginia Woolf. London. Peter Owen. 1972
Oppenheim, Janet "Shattered Nerves": Doctors, Patients, and Depression in Victorian England : New York, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991 Paykel E S: Life Events and Early environment; in Handbook of Affective Disorders, 1982 Plomer William: Autobiography , Cape 1975 Poole, Roger: The Unknown Virginia Woolf: London, Humanities Press. 3rd Edn,1990 Richards R et al : Creativity in Manic-depressives, cyclothymes, their normal relatives and control subjects: J. Abn. Psychol. 1988,97, 281-288Rose, Phyllis: Woman of Letters: A Life of Virginia Woolf. NY:Oxford; Routledge, 1978
Rosenbaum S.P.(Ed): The Bloomsbury Group: A Collection of Memoirs, Commentary adn Criticism. Croom Helm; University of Toronto, 1975
Savage, George H.: Insanity and Allied Neuroses. Cassell, London, 1884
Showalter, Elaine : The Female Malady:Women, Madness, and English Culture,1830-1980: New York, Pantheon, 1985 Silver, Brenda R : Virginia Woolf's Reading Notebooks : Princeton Univ Press, 1983Slater, Eliot and Meyer, A. : Contributions to a pathography of the musicians: Robert Schumann, Confinia Psychiatrica,1959, 2, 65-94.
Spalding, Frances: Vanessa Bell. Weidenfeld and Nocholson, London, 1983. Spotts (Ed) : The Letters of Leonard Woolf: Bloomsbury, 1990 Stape,J.H.:Virginia Woolf - Interviews and Recollections. Macmillan, 1995Trombley, Stephen: All that summer she was mad: Virginia Woolf and her doctors: London, Junction Books, 1981
Wolpert E S Manic-depressive Illness: History of a Syndrome : NY International University Press, 1977Woolf, Leonard: An Autobiography, Vol.1,1880-1911;Vol.2,1911-1969.Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1980
Woolf, Leonard: Letters,ed. Spotts,F. New York:Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich,1989
Woolf, Virginia: A Passionate Apprentice; The Early Journals,1897-1909. Ed. Leaska, M.A. Hogarth Press, London. 1990
Woolf Virginia: Diary. Ed. Anne Olivier Bell. 5 vols. London, Hogarth Press,1977-84 Woolf Virginia: On being ill: in Essays Vol 4.Woolf, Virginia: Collected Essays, 4 Vols. London, Hogarth Press, 1966-7
Woolf, Virginia: Congenial Spirits: The Selected Letters of Virginia Woolf, Ed. Joanne T Banks. London, The Hogarth Press,1989
Woolf, Virginia, ed Leaska, M A : A Passionate Apprentice: the early journals, 1897-1909: London, Hogarth Press, 1990 Zwerdling, Alex: Virginia Woolf and the real world : Berkeley London California Univ Press, 1986If you can't see a frame on the left of the screen click here
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