[Rarebooks] FS: SUPERB Virginia Woolf Letter about her "abominable books, " setting type, and much, much more

[Charles Agvent]

Unless it sells beforehand, this will be one of many signed books and 
letters, along with other diverse items including many new arrivals not 
yet listed on the internet, that we will be bringing to the New York 
Book Fair, April 8 - 10, at the Armory on Park Ave. and 67th St.  Please 
visit us in booth D8.

WOOLF, Virginia. TYPED LETTER SIGNED (TLS) with Lengthy Holograph 
Postscript. First Edition. Superb two-page TYPED LETTER SIGNED by her as 
"L & V. Woolf Hogarth Press, Tavistock Square" with a 14-line holograph 
postscript on both sides of one 8-1/2" x 11" sheet to Marjorie [Joad] 
about family, friends, employees, dogs, and her work. In part: "My dear 
Marjorie, or rather foolish, wild, unpractical-woman why should you 
torment yourself with thinking you are hated and despised and 
forgotten-that people slander you, and the Woolves revile you?... I have 
scarcely been out, and written only the completely idiotic trash which I 
have to do for my abominable books. All is forgiven to influenza 
though.... Oh how my back aches with stooping over those infernal trays 
and tossing u's into t boxes ys into js. Despair has set in.... For my 
own part, a little beauty is what I crave; anybody can be good; wits I 
have myself.... Leonard has just written the most intemperate abusive 
letter to Austin Johnson.... But let us never be troubled by such a 
surly vindictive lying brute as A. J. again. This is not exaggerated. So 
if you hear of an elderly corpse floating in the Cam, swollen to a 
disgusting size, and purple about the gills, that will be your old 
friend.... My party was absolutely heavenly. I lay in bed and imagined 
it. Never shall I go to a party any other way.... Vanessa Bell behaved 
disgracefully; science scowled at art; letters meandered." Much more. 
Joad helped Woolf set type by hand at the press. Austin Johnson was a 
bookseller's representative. There are also mentions of Hogarth titles 
by Freud and Robert Trevelyan. In this letter Woolf touches upon many of 
the important subjects in her life, not the least of which is her 
husband, her work as both writer and publisher, and her depression. The 
graphic description of the drowned corpse is chilling in its 
foreshadowing of Woolf's own suicide 16 years later. Fine in a Fine 
custom slipcase. A truly exceptional letter.         $12,500.00

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CHARLES AGVENT
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Mertztown, PA 19539-8750
610-682-4750
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