Happy birthday, Virginia Woolf

It is the birthday of English writer Virginia Woolf (1882), who is remembered for her novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and her book-length essay A Room of One’s Own (1929). She was a leader in the Bloomsbury Group, influential writers, artists, philosophers, which held sway in the early 20th century. In this short recording of the author from a BBC program in 1937, she expounds on the craft of writing. Delightful.

Happy birthday, Dorothy Richardson

It is the birthday of English author Dorothy Richardson (1873), who is credited with writing the first stream of consciousness novel published in English, predating James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. The complete work is called Pilgrimmage. it is 12 volumes, the first of which is Pointed Roofs (1915). The autobiographical work chronicles the development of a young woman coming into her own as an adult. She married Bohemian illustrator Alan Odle, and supported him with her writing. She was associated with the Bloombury Group and she watched W.B. Yeats writing by candlelight across the alley from her flat. She died alone in obscurity and poverty in 1957, largely forgotten by the literary world.