✳flâneur — a map of the web's best reading

Virginia Woolf’s children – we have scarcely broken into our hoard

katharinetowers.blog · 1,022 words · saved by 1 readers

Famously she had none. But she loved them, for example her sister Vanessa’s. There is a beautiful photograph of Virginia and Angelica sitting outdoors, side by side. Virginia holds something in her hand and looks at the camera. Angelica looks down; she may be reading or making a daisy chain. Virginia’s face, half-shadowed by the wide brim of her hat, seems to be expressing something to the camera along the lines of Look at this child. How absorbed and separate she is. How little she needs or wants me. In December 1927 Virginia went to Nessa’s house for a party and watched the children performing in a play. She wrote in her diary: “Angelica so mature and composed; all grey and silver; such an epitome of all womanliness” Wanting to write about the children in The Waves but not knowing where or how to start, this little description of Angelica gave me a clue. When Woolf describes Angelica it’s as if she sees her as already complete – not a child on the way to being grown-up but already c

Famously she had none. But she loved them, for example her sister Vanessa’s. There is a beautiful photograph of Virginia and Angelica sitting outdoors, side by side. Virginia holds something in her hand and looks at the camera. Angelica looks down; she may be reading or making a daisy chain. Virginia’s face, half-shadowed by the wide brim of her hat, seems to be expressing something to the camera along the lines of Look at this child. How absorbed and separate she is. How little she needs or wants me. In December 1927 Virginia went to Nessa’s house for a party and watched the children performi

Explore this link on the map →

related reading