Virginia Woolf’s Influential Forebears

Marion Dell is an independent writer and lecturer based in the UK, and has previously taught at the Open University. She is the co-author (with Marion Whybrow) of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell: Remembering St Ives (2003), and she is currently writing a biography of Julia Stephen.

“Virginia Woolf’s ambivalent relationship with her Victorian forebears, particularly the women, is the topic of Marion Dell’s even-handed and beautifully researched monograph. … Perhaps the greatest value of Virginia Woolf’s Influential Forebears is its close focus on where and how in Woolf’s work the influence of these three women is both present and visible.” (Catherine W. Hollis, Virginia Woolf Miscellany, Vol. 97 (2), 2021)

• Introduction: Born into a Large Connection 1. And Finally Virginia: Cameron, Ritchie, Stephen and Woolf's constructs of her ancestry 2. Knocking at the Door: Heredity, Legacy and Transition in Night and Day 3. The Transparent Medium: Anny Thackeray Ritchie 4. Take my lens. I bequeath it to my descendents: Julia Margaret Cameron 5. Closer than any of the Living: Julia Prinsep Stephen 6. Let us be our great grandmothers: Heredity and Legacy in The Years Conclusion: Invisible Presences and Transparent Mediums: Virginia Woolf's nineteenth-century legacies Bibliography Index