Virginia Woolf's "Anon" and "The Reader"

Six months before her untimely death, Virginia Woolf was in the early stages of composing two works; "Anon" and "To The Reader." Both are believed to be two chapters of an unnamed work ( Silver pp.425). These works demonstrate that Woolf was highly concerned with the development of the novel as an art form because she was contemplating the history of literature, the role of the audience and the threat World War II posed to them both: "But Woolf...was obsessed...[with]...the possibility of her own death from a German bomb or by suicide if the Germans invaded England; the death of a culture and civilization that had nourished her in the past; and the disappearance or death of her...audience" ( Silver pp.425). Additionally, Woolf's "Anon" emphasized "...the interrelationship of the arts and the importance of the eye and ear on early writers" (Silver pp.413). 

Reid, Panthea. "Virginia Woolf." Encyclopedia Britannica, 24 Mar. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Virginia-Woolf. Accessed 1 June 2021.

Silver, Brenda R. "'Anon' and 'The Reader': Virginia Woolf's Last Essays." Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 25, no. 3/4, 1979, pp. 356–441. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/441326. Accessed 1 June 2021.

 

Associated Place(s)

Event date:

1940 to 1941