Virginia Woolf to Ethel Smyth, 1 February 1940:
'I'd like to look at South Riding [...] W[inifred]. H[oltby]. was a barrel organ writer [...] I'm
judging WH only on her journalism [...] and the book on me, which I felt to be a painstaking
effort rather to clear up her own muddles than to get the hang of mine. But I didnt want to be
written about (not personally) and so never did more than whip through it with one eye shut.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Thursday 5 October 1933: '[At Labour Party Conference, Hastings] I talked to Pethick L.; a frost-bitten blue eyed little old man now; & he was reading Holtby on V. W. You [italics]are[end italics] V. W.? Yes. I said'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Frederick William Pethick-Lawrence Print: Book
Friday 9 February 1940: 'For some reason hope has revived. Now what served as bait? [...] I think it was largely reading Stephen [Spender]'s autobiography [published Spring 1940 by Woolf's Hogarth Press] [...] its odd -- reading that & South Riding both mint new, give me a fillip after all the evenings I grind at Burke & Mill. A good thing to read one's contemporaries, even rapid twinkling slice of life novels like poor W.H.'s.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'In a short vignette called "Harking Back to Long Ago", Winifred describes how she and Grace, aged four and six and a half, lay awake on Christmas Eve gazing through the square uncurtained window at the frosty constellations of the winter stars.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain
'"I read "The Runners" last week," he continued, and told her that he had advised John Lane to refuse it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Priestley Manuscript: Manuscript of an unpublished novel.
'But it was in a "Good Housekeeping" article on "How to Enjoy Bad Health" that she quoted the remarks with which he prefaced his announcement that she could not hope to live for more than two years.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Serial / periodical
'In some respects this little work of criticism is the profoundest of Winifred's books.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Book
'"I am going to call attention in this department," it ran, "to the fact that the most informing - and upsetting - book to read to-day on the Abyssinian crisis is "Mandoa, Mandoa!" I wrote the review in "Books"; this summer I bought the English edition to re-read in the light of present events. Heavens, how well it stood the test!"'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: May Lamberton-Becker Print: Book
'Not until I read the fictitious account of this consultation four years afterwards in "South Riding" did I realise that the diagnosis then given her amounted to a verdict of early death, which she understood and accepted.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Book
'At the time of her death I had read only part of "South Riding", which was to bring her back to me, and I found no reason to change the words which I had written in my notebook as she lay dying.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: typescript
'Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue: 23.6.36
Francis E Pollard in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and, with the addition of No. 7, approved.
7. Frank Pollard then introduced the subject for the evening, Modern Authors. [...]
8. There followed a series of talks, in most cases acompanied by readings: these were in the
order named
Janet Rawlings, on E. H. Young’s “Miss Mole’
Dorothy Brain, on T. S. Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral”
R. H Robson on some Poems of W. H. Auden
V. W. Alexander on René Bazin’s “La Terre qui meurt” and “Les Oberlé”, and finally
Charles Stansfield on Winifred Holtby’s “South Riding.”'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles E. Stansfield Manuscript: Unknown
