The London Scene: Six Essays on London Life
4/5
()
About this ebook
Virginia Woolf relished any opportunity for a stroll around London. She found great pleasure in observing the city and its people - noticing the subtle details that others often miss. In this collection of stunning essays, Woolf gives us an intimate tour of her beloved hometown. We venture through unfamiliar pockets of London and revisit its most famous landmarks; we smell the salty air of the East End docks and hear the echoing sounds inside the Houses of Parliament; Woolf transports us to the bustle of Oxford Street and the more peaceful moments on Hampstead Heath.
Originally published bi-monthly in 1931 by
Good Housekeeping, the essays in
The London Scene exhibit Virginia Woolf at the height of her literary powers and present an unparalleled and meditative portrait of an extraordinary metropolis - capturing the London of the 1930s and also the eternal city we recognise today.
'While it might not list the hottest restaurants and the newest boutique hotels,
The London Scene gives us an amalgam of intelligence and beauty that few, if any, guidebooks provide.' -
Francine Prose
'1930s London comes alive in these six evocative essays . . . a discerning, affectionate tour of her beloved city.' -
Washington Post
Virginia Woolf
VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882–1941) was one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century. An admired literary critic, she authored many essays, letters, journals, and short stories in addition to her groundbreaking novels, including Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, and Orlando.
Read more from Virginia Woolf
Orlando, A Biography: The Virginia Woolf Library Authorized Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Writer's Diary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Room Of One's Own: The Virginia Woolf Library Authorized Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOrlando: A Biography Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mrs. Dalloway: The Virginia Woolf Library Authorized Edition Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Room Of One's Own (annotated): The Virginia Woolf Library Annotated Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMrs. Dalloway Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Night and Day Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flush Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To the Lighthouse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To The Lighthouse (annotated): The Virginia Woolf Library Annotated Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJacob's Room Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To The Lighthouse: The Virginia Woolf Library Authorized Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Room of One's Own Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Waves: The Virginia Woolf Library Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Orlando: A Biography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/550 Great Love Letters You Have To Read (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mrs. Dalloway (annotated): The Virginia Woolf Library Annotated Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Short Stories of Virginia Woolf Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Three Guineas: The Virginia Woolf Library Authorized Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The London Scene
Related ebooks
Lady Into Fox Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDog Hearted: Essays on Our Fierce and Familiar Companions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAt the Pond: Swimming at the Hampstead Ladies' Pond Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Women I Think About at Night: Traveling the Paths of My Heroes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crime and Punishment Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Passenger: Paris Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Negative Space Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Unwritten Novel: With the Essay 'How Should One Read a Book?' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhere Angels Fear to Tread Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dubliners 100: Fifteen New Stories Inspired by the Original Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To Walk Alone in the Crowd: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Loquela Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5A Country You Can Leave: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Traveler of the Century: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Awakening Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Surprising Place: Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIsn't Forever Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Passenger: Rome Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hunger of Women Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMrs Dalloway (Wisehouse Classics Edition) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNovena for the Dead Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Book of Kane and Margaret: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Picture of Dorian Gray Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Dog Husband Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOskar and the Things Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat Are the Men Writing in the Sugar? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSun-Up, and Other Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Very Italian Christmas: The Greatest Italian Holiday Stories of All Time Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Congratulations, Rhododendrons Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThings I Didn't Throw Out Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Travel For You
The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spotting Danger Before It Spots You: Build Situational Awareness To Stay Safe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/550 Great American Places: Essential Historic Sites Across the U.S. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5made in america: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Travel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Notes from a Small Island Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5RV Hacks: 400+ Ways to Make Life on the Road Easier, Safer, and More Fun! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Living a Jewish Life, Revised and Updated: Jewish Traditions, Customs, and Values for Today's Families Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fodor's New Orleans Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Disney Declassified Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Northeast Treasure Hunter's Gem & Mineral Guide (5th Edition): Where and How to Dig, Pan and Mine Your Own Gems and Minerals Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEmily Post's Etiquette, 19th Edition: Manners for Today Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fodor's Best Road Trips in the USA: 50 Epic Trips Across All 50 States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fodor's Bucket List USA: From the Epic to the Eccentric, 500+ Ultimate Experiences Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFodor's Bucket List Europe: From the Epic to the Eccentric, 500+ Ultimate Experiences Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMental Floss: Genius Instruction Manual Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tales from the Haunted South: Dark Tourism and Memories of Slavery from the Civil War Era Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lonely Planet The Travel Book: A Journey Through Every Country in the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fodor's Best Weekend Road Trips Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCamp Cooking: 100 Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fodor's The Complete Guide to the National Parks of the West: with the Best Scenic Road Trips Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRocks and Minerals of The World: Geology for Kids - Minerology and Sedimentology Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Spanish Verbs - Conjugations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Everything Travel Guide to Ireland: From Dublin to Galway and Cork to Donegal - a complete guide to the Emerald Isle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Reviews for The London Scene
54 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An intimate look at London and Londoners from a writer who left us much, much too soon.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If you enjoyed Orlando you should enjoy this as well. Both are about Englishness and both, to a certain extent, literature.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5'I love walking in London,' said Mrs Dalloway.'Really, it's better than walking in the country.'Mrs Dalloway by Virginia WoolfGiven the status of Virginia Woolf as an author in English literature, The London scene. Six essays on London life has received very little attention. This is all the more startling, as this small book provides a most lyrical and enticing description of the city of London, a city loved by the British and travellers alike. Moreover, London, as the capital of Great Britain, and, at that time, the empire at large, has always been a city filled to the brim with culture and literature, a well Woolf thankfully dips into.The London scene. Six essays on London life was published in the same year as her novel, The Waves, a mature work by an author known for her lyrical prose style. She had already published six novels, and her work was increasingly moving in the direction of essays and non-fiction. The writing of the six essays or articles about London was commissioned by Good Housekeeping, a women's magazine, which had launched its British edition in 1922. The essays were published in bi-monthly instalments, between December 1931 and November 1932. The first five essays were published in book form in 1981, but by that time the sixth essay was lost, until it was rediscovered at the University of Sussex in 2004. This prompted the Ecco Press to collect all six essays, and publish them for the first time in the United States in a small volume of just under 100 pages, with a gorgeous cover.The six essays are written as walks in London. As historical London has changed but little, is should be possible, almost, to retrace her steps and gaze up at towers, cathedrals and facades with one's own eyes. Then again, Virginia Wollf walking around London and describing the city provided an impressionistic image of Bloomsbury London. Besides the beautiful images she captured and framed with her mind, the essays provide a kaleidoscopic display of illusions and allusions of London and London's history or the Nineteenth and early Twentieth century.The first essay, "The docks of London" is perhaps not the most enticing, as even in Woolf's day the Thames estuary and the docks were becoming a derelict area, a messy fringe to the city, a wasteland too, of the literary imagination. However, the following essays bring the allure of London to full bloom. This contrast between the crudity of the docklands and the refinement of the City is intentional, as if the reader makes a transition from the leaden grey into the dazzling gold. In Virginia Woolf's prose, London is a warm place, a cosiness emphasized as she takes the reader into the homes of London's great writers, such as Dicken's house, Keats' house and Carlyle's house. However, Woolf's inimical style shines through in the haunting descriptions of statesmen's sculptures "gazing from white eyes". Haunting are also descriptions from Westminster Abbey, where "(f)rom every corner, from every wall, somebody leans or listens or bends forward as if about to speak."The London scene. Six essays on London life is not merely a book about London. We see London through Woolf's eyes, and through her eyes, we see Virginia Woolf.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5These six essays, written in 1931, were first published in Good Housekeeping in 1931-1932. The essays were inspired by Woolfs favorite walks in London. Her love of London is evident in all the essays. I found these essays more accessible than any of her novels that I've attempted. (I've started three, never getting very far before giving up).
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A delightful, slim compilation of Virginia Woolf's short essays about London and London life, originally published in Good Housekeeping magazine 1931-1932. A joy to read as her writing on London is so evocative.
Book preview
The London Scene - Virginia Woolf
‘WHITHER, O splendid ship’ the poet asked as he lay on the shore and watched the great sailing ship pass away on the horizon. Perhaps, as he imagined, it was making for some port in the Pacific; but one day almost certainly it must have heard an irresistible call and come past the North Foreland and the Reculvers, and entered the narrow waters of the Port of London, sailed past the low banks of Gravesend and Northfleet and Tilbury, up Erith Reach and Barking Reach and Gallion’s Reach, past the gas works and the sewage works till it found, for all the world like a car on a parking ground, a space reserved for it in the deep waters of the Docks. There it furled its sails and dropped