Introduction

Abstract

Defying anyone who—like the Oxbridge beadle of A Room of One’s Own—would bid us get off the grass, we and our contributors have taken Woolf’s advice seriously. From a variety of critical perspectives, we have sought to understand the ways in which Woolf herself trespassed, defying boundaries between reader and text, boundaries among readers (scholarly vs. “common,” for example), and between kinds of texts (“highbrow” vs. “low-brow,” or short story vs. novel). The act of trespassing, we argue, is central to Woolf’s view of how literature works, and particularly relevant to an understanding of her short fiction.

But let us bear in mind a piece of advice that an eminent Victorian who was also an eminent pedestrian once gave to walkers: “Whenever you see a board up with ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted,’ trespass at once.” Let us trespass at once. Literature is no one’s private ground; literature is common ground. It is not cut up into nations; there are no wars there. Let us trespass freely and fearlessly and find our own way for ourselves.

—“The Leaning Tower”