Abstract
Virginia Woolf’s father, Leslie Stephen, came of a family famous already in law and politics: particularly famous for the part its members played in the agitation against the slave trade. He added lustre to the family record, resigning a fellowship at Cambridge University because he was not prepared to take Holy Orders as a clergyman — which was then expected — as he realised that he was an agnostic (he himself coined the word), that is, he held an open mind with suspended belief on religious matters. On leaving the university he devoted himself to criticism and to literature. His first marriage, to Thackeray’s daughter, was unhappy. She suffered from recurring fits of insanity.
‘Virginia Woolf’, Great Friends: Portraits of Seventeen Writers (London: Macmillan, 1979; New York: Atheneum, 1980) pp. 114, 116–30.
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© 1995 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Garnett, D. (1995). Virginia Woolf: A Portrait. In: Stape, J.H. (eds) Virginia Woolf. Macmillan Interviews and Recollections. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23807-1_34
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23807-1_34
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