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177 WOOLF, Virginia. “Is Fiction an Art?” Hand-corrected typescript review of Aspects of Fiction by E. M. Forster. 52 Tavistock Square, London: October 1927 Quarto, 9 typescript pages, printed on rectos only, annotated in purple ink at head by the author “Mrs. Woolf / 52 Tavistock Square London,” containing autograph revisions by Woolf and editor’s and printer’s annotations in pen- cil and coloured pencil. Some pages with glued additions, others shorter, some wear at edges and light surface soiling. Original typescript draft with 60 autograph corrections by Woolf of one of her most defining essays, with superb provenance : by descent from the editor responsible for bringing the essay to pub- lication, Geoffrey Parsons (1879–1956). Published in the New York Herald Tribune on Sunday, 16 October 1927, Woolf’s review of E. M. Forster’s Aspects of Fiction appeared on the first page of the Book sec- tion of the paper and continued on pages 5 and 6. The present type- script, complete save for three paragraphs (numbers three to six) of the final published text, is a scarce survival. Notably, Woolf has crossed out her original title for the essay, “The Art of Fiction,” at the head of page 1, and typed in the title as it was published, “Is Fiction an Art?” That addition, and the final two pages, are in blue typewriter ink; the remaining typescript is in black. The following month, Woolf revised the essay and returned to her original title of “The Art of Fiction” for its publication in Na- tion & Athenaeum on 12 November. Some of Woolf’s corrections are telling, such as her change of the word “may” to “must” in a key passage, shifting the phrasing from the possibility of breaking rules to the necessity of doing: “if fiction is, as we suggest, in difficulties, it may be because no- body grasps her firmly and defines her severely. She has had no rules drawn up for her. And though rules may be wrong, and may [changed in the manuscript to “must”] be broken, they have this advantage—they confer dignity and order upon their subject; they admit her to a place in civilised society.” Elsewhere, an oft-cited sentence from the essay—“Why should a real chair be better than an imaginary elephant?”—appears here as it was first written prior
to her revision: “And how do you make out that a real chair is better than an imaginary elephant?” “In terms of personal relationship, E. M. Forster was probably closer to Virginia Woolf than to any other contemporary novelist of comparable stature” (Das & Beer, p. 217). By the time of the publi- cation of Forster’s Aspects of Fiction , their complex literary relation- ship had evolved since his influential review of Woolf’s first novel, The Voyage Out . Woolf had continued to see Forster as her senior in accomplishment until the mid–1920s, when Mrs Dalloway estab- lished her as the equal of her friend; now, prior to the publication of Aspects of Fiction , Forster warily asked his editor “not to send Vir- ginia Woolf the uncorrected proofs for a small reason; they contain a criticism of her own work which I have modified in the revise!!” (2 September 1927). It was Woolf’s custom to destroy the English typescripts of her full-length works. This has survived due to its publication in Ameri- ca. The nearest recent comparable to the present item is “Thoughts on Peace During an Air Raid,” typescript with corrections, 1940, 8pp (sold Christie’s, Nov 14, 2007, lot 56, £14,400 including com- mission), now held at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. £22,500 [130267] 178 WOOLF, Virginia. Corrected typescript for the introduction to Mrs Dalloway . London: June 1928 4 sheets (256 × 204 mm), typewritten in purple ink to rectos only, headed with Woolf’s typewritten address: “Mrs. Woolf, 52 Tavistock Square, Lon- don WC1”. Manuscript corrections in ink and pencil by several hands includ- ing Virginia Woolf’s. Final leaf verso inscribed “Virg. Woolf Intro. to Mrs. Dalloway (Paid July 18 1928)” in pencil. Horizontal folding crease across the middle, some light soiling, very good condition. Virginia Woolf’s original typescript, with her autograph correc- tions in eight places, for her first introduction to Mrs Dalloway , constituting Woolf’s first published commentary on her own novel. It was published in the Modern Library edition in 1928, four years after the first edition, published in 1925 by the Hogarth Press.
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