Here’s a piece of good news that I like to read.

“A recently rediscovered personal copy of the novel’s first edition, containing Woolf’s handwritten notes and amendments, now offers a tantalising glimpse into her private thoughts about her fraught opus, and her writing process.”

Virginia Woolf’s first novel was recently found in the science section of the rare book section at University of Sydney, having been put there by mistake in 1976.

The University of Sydney copy is the only one publicly available which you can read here. (See Woolf’s amendements on Chapter 16 and 25)

I’ve only read two of her novels: A Room of One’s Own and To The Lighthouse which I loved and raved about. I guess I was in the right frame of mind to read this book at the time and it just made sense. It was an experience to read it.

I’ve got a few of her books of my bookshelves that I need to read. I find that you need to fully devote your time and attention to her writing so I make sure that when I do pick up her books, I don’t have anything else competing for my attention. Besides, you want to experience the book slowly and with all its “subtle force”.

The type of experience where you read the words and you sigh with their beauty and you wonder how a selection of specific words put together in certain ways evoke images in your head and feelings in your body but the force comes long afterwards where those words and images are lodged deep within you and they return like waves to knock you for six.

That’s writing.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-21/virginia-woolf-copy-of-the-voyage-out-rediscovered-at-sydney-uni/102629680?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web