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COLLECTION Identifier: MS Thr 560

Virginia Woolf Monk's House photograph album, MH-3

Overview

The third of six photograph albums compiled by English writer, Virginia Woolf.

Dates

  • Creation: 1863-1938
  • Creation: 1890-1933

Language of Materials

Collection materials are in English.

Conditions Governing Access

Restricted: fragile; use surrogate. For access to original consult curatorial staff.

Extent

.5 linear feet (1 volume in 1 box)

The majority of the photographs in this album are snapshots possibly taken by Virginia Woolf or by her friends and family. The rest of the photographs include portraits or scenic landscapes of their homes or from their travels. The subject of the majority of the photographs are family and friends of Virginia Woolf. Subjects include Virginia Woolf, Clive Bell, Julian Bell, Quentin Bell, Vanessa Bell, T. S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot, Vivienne Eliot, E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster, Roger Eliot Fry, Angelica Garnett, Duncan Grant, John Maynard Keynes, John Lehmann, Lydia Lopokova, Julia Duckworth Stephen, Sir Leslie Stephen, Lytton Strachey, and V. (Victoria) Sackville-West.

Some locations of the photographs were identified. Many of these are the homes of Leonard and Virginia Woolf including Monk's House (Rodmell, England). A few photographs were taken at the home of Virginia Woolf's sister called Charleston Farmhouse (West Firle, England). In addition, a few photographs were taken at the childhood summer home of Virginia Woolf, Talland House, St. Ives (Cornwall, England). Other locations include the home, Garsington Manor (Garsington, England), of Lady Ottoline Violet Anne Cavendish-Bentinck Morrell as well as the Elizabeth Bowen's home, Bowen's Court (Cork, Ireland). Virginia and Leonard Woolf also documented their vacations including a trip in 1932-1933 to Greece and Italy with Roger Eliot Fry and his sister, Margery Fry.

Biographical / Historical

Virginia Woolf (1882 –1941) was an English novelist, essayist, diarist, publisher, feminist, and writer of short stories.

Virginia Woolf Monk's House photograph album (MH-3) was most likely arranged originally by Virginia Woolf as well as possibly Leonard Woolf, Vanessa Bell and other family members.

Most of the albums are missing photographs that may now be located in the loose photographs listed below in the cataloging. These images may have been removed to serve as illustrations for Leonard Woolf's publications as well as A marriage of two minds by George Spater and Ian Parsons.

Arrangement

The albums were numbered one through six when gifted by Frederick R. Koch to the Houghton Library in 1983. This order was retained in the repository.

Photographs are numbered in order of appearance in the album. In addition, the recto of pages are numbered in order of appearance in the album. Pages devoid of any photographs are not numbered.

Photographs found loose inside the album were removed to a separate folder. The original location is documented in the cataloging.

Titles devised by cataloger.

Physical Location

b

Immediate Source of Acquisition

No accession number. Gift of Frederick R. (Frederick Robinson) Koch, received: 1983 March.

Separated Materials

For other Monk's House photographs see: MS Thr 557, MS Thr 559, MS Thr 561, MS Thr 562, MS Thr 563, MS Thr 564.

Bibliography

Humm, Maggie. Snapshots of Bloomsbury: The private lives of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell (New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 2006.)
Smith, Martin Ferguson (2011). Virginia Woolf's Second Visit to Greece (New in English Studies, 92: 1, p. 55-83.)
  • Humm, Maggie. Snapshots of Bloomsbury: The private lives of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell (New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 2006.)
  • Smith, Martin Ferguson (2011). Virginia Woolf's Second Visit to Greece (New in English Studies, 92: 1, p. 55-83.)

Processing Information

Processed by: Jennifer Lyons and Alison Drew Harris.

Title
Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941. Virginia Woolf Monk's House photograph album, MH-3, 1863-1938: Guide.
Author
Harvard Theatre Collection. Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
Description rules
dacs
Language of description
und
EAD ID
hou02070

Repository Details

Part of the Houghton Library Repository

Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.

Contact:
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Harvard University
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