London Scene: Six Essays on London Life

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These half dozen essays, originally commissioned in 1931 for the British Good Housekeeping,remind us again of Virginia Woolf's consummate gifts as an essayist. The seemingly effortless grace of these pieces is accented by Woolf's spare, colorist prose and her modest, conversational tone. The topics of the essays include sketches of life along the Thames and visits to the homes of famous writers. Francine Prose's insightful introduction places the collection within historical and aesthetic contexts.

Washington Post Book World

“1930s London comes alive in these six evocative essays. . . a discerning, affectionate tour of her beloved city.”

Publishers Weekly

As novelist Prose notes in her perceptive introduction, Woolf demonstrates a huge affection for her hometown-like her heroine Clarissa Dalloway, whose stream-of-consciousness litany at the opening of Mrs. Dalloway famously listed London as one of her true loves-in six essays originally commissioned for the British edition of Good Housekeeping magazine in 1931-1932. Woolf takes us to historian Carlyle's Chelsea home, without running water and full of coal smoke, where "two of the most nervous and exacting people of their time" fought "for cleanliness and warmth." Keats's orderly and self-controlled Hampstead abode, says Woolf, belies the poet's youthful, anguished death. The romance of watching ships coming home to harbor contrasts sharply with the decrepitude of the warehouses that line the banks of the Thames, and the cheapness and glitter of Oxford Street attract bargain hunters galore. The voices of the dead poets buried in Westminster Abbey continue to question the meaning of existence, and a salon percolates with the conversations of living artists, writers, actors and politicians. Prose points out that while this mini-guidebook may not list the hottest restaurants, and London's skyline has changed dramatically since the city's bombing in WWII, Woolf is still a charming, relevant companion to the delights of a great metropolis. 6 b&w illus. (July 10) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.