Record Number: 19025

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

Thursday 22 March 1940: 'I read Tolstoy at Breakfast -- Goldenweiser, that I translated with Kot in 1923 & have almost forgotten. Always the same reality -- like touching an exposed electric wire. Even so imperfectly conveyed -- his rugged short cut mind -- to me the most, not sympathetic, but inspiring, rousing, genius in the raw [...] I remember that was my feeling about W. & Peace, read in bed at Twickenham. Old [Sir George] Savage [doctor] picked it up. "Splendid stuff!" & Jean [Thomas, owner of nursing home] tried to admire what was a revelation to me. Its directness, its reality. Yet he's against photographic realism.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

Between 1 Jan 1910 and 31 Dec 1910

Country:

England

Time

n/a

Place:

city: Twickenham
other location: Private nursing home

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Virginia Stephen

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Female

Date of Birth:

25 Jan 1882

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

writer

Religion:

agnostic

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

England

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Leo Tolstoy

Title:

War and Peace

Genre:

Fiction, History

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

19025

Source:

Print

Author:

Virginia Woolf

Editor:

Anne Olivier Bell

Title:

The Diary of Virginia Woolf

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

1984

Vol:

5

Page:

273

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Virginia Woolf, Anne Olivier Bell (ed.), The Diary of Virginia Woolf, (London, 1984), 5, p. 273, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=19025, accessed: 24 April 2024

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Additional Comments:

Woolf spent six weeks in nursing home run by Miss Jean Thomas at Twickenham during 1910, on advice of Sir George Savage, a family friend and physician specialising in mental illness; see p.273 n.11 in source.