WOOLF, Virginia (1882-1941) - photo 1
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WOOLF, Virginia (1882-1941) - photo 3
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WOOLF, Virginia (1882-1941)

Lot 191
10.07.2024 10:30UTC +00:00
Classic
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£ 4 410
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1249878
Lot 191 | WOOLF, Virginia (1882-1941)
Estimate value
£ 4 000 – 6 000
WOOLF, Virginia (1882-1941)
Orlando. London: The Hogarth Press, 1928.
First English edition, presentation copy inscribed by Woolf to Margaret Llewelyn Davies (1861-1944), and with a further annotation in the margin of a ‘Preface’ leaf adding Davies to her list of acknowledgements.

A socialist, feminist and pacifist who was a leading activist in the co-operative movement, Margaret Llewelyn Davies was a dedicated campaigner for women’s rights and social justice. Woolf contributed an introductory letter to her 1931 publication Life as We Have Known It, a compilation of recollections by working-class women, and said of the formidable Davies that she ‘could compel a steamroller to waltz’. The present copy of Orlando, a novel which questions traditional conceptions of gender and is now regarded as a classic text of feminist fiction, is a significant token of Woolf’s links with the avant garde of working class feminism in the early 20th century.

As General Secretary of the Co-operative Women's Guild from 1889 to 1921, Davies was largely responsible for developing the guild into ‘a pressure group of considerable influence for women's rights’ (Dictionary of Labour Biography, 1972). She already knew Woolf slightly through a mutual friend and family contacts, but it was not until 1912 when she became acquainted with Leonard, close to the time of his engagement to the author, that her importance in the lives of the couple truly took hold. As one of his earliest and most influential mentors, Davies became to Leonard 'a friend and confidant who helped the young man formulate a political philosophy' (Oldfield, Women in the Milieu of Leonard and Virginia Woolf, 1998).

Her guidance was never more necessary than during his first marital crisis, brought about by Virginia’s nervous breakdown in 1913. Indeed, 'of all the people whom Leonard Woolf knew, including his own family and that of Virginia, it was to Margaret Llewelyn Davies that he turned for counsel and support in what was the worst nightmare of his life to date […] if the world owes the work of Virginia Woolf to the fact that Leonard Woolf did not commit his manic wife to an asylum when he no longer had the strength to go on trying to persuade her to eat or sleep and not to believe the hideous messages shrieking inside her head, then it owes Leonard's psychological survival between 1913 and 1915 largely to Margaret Llewelyn Davies’ (Oldfield). Kirkpatrick A11b. See Ruth Cohen’s Margaret Llewelyn Davies: With Women for a New World (2020).

Octavo (215 x 140mm). 8 half-tone plates, 3 of these with Vita Sackville-West as subject (occasional faint spotting). Original orange cloth, spine lettered in gilt (spine faded, staining to boards, faint wear to spine ends, lacking the dust-jacket but with the illustration on the upper panel excised and loosely inserted). Provenance: Margaret Llewelyn Davies (1861-1944; presentation inscription from the author on front free endpaper: ‘Margaret / from Virginia / with love’) – by descent to the present owner).
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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10.07.2024 – 10.07.2024
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