Melymbrosia: A Novel - Softcover

Woolf, Virginia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 157344197X ISBN 13: 9781573441971

Publisher: Cleis Press, 2004

Synopsis

Virginia Woolf completed Melymbrosia in 1912 when she was thirty years old. The story concerned the emotional and sexual awakening of a young Englishwoman traveling abroad, and bristled with social commentary on issues as varied as homosexuality, the suffrage movement, and colonialism. She was warned by colleagues, however, that publishing an outspoken indictment of Britain could prove disastrous to her fledgling career as a novelist. Moreover, the critical offensive from men would be especially harsh towards a woman author. Woolf thus revised the novel extensively, omitting much of the political candor until, in 1915, the quieter book was published under the title The Voyage Out. The original Melymbrosia offers a rare look into the formative mind of the modernist master who revolutionized twentieth century literature. Here, one sees the young Virginia Woolf learning her craft.

Like James Joyce’s Stephen Hero, the original treatment of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, or Ralph Ellison’s posthumously published Juneteenth, Melymbrosia is a "lost classic" that owes its existence to the research of a devoted scholar, in this instance Louise DeSalvo, who spent seven years uncovering the original novel from Woolf’s papers in the archives of the New York Public Library.

About this title

From the Author:

"Melymbrosia is as covertly and as fiercely seditious as many of Jane Austen's novels... No matter how accomplished and risk-taking this first novel was, Woolf continually expressed fears about publishing it, about having it seen, exposed, and criticized. To her sister Vanessa Bell, she wrote that she hid her manuscript whenever anyone entered a room and she wondered if she would ever dare print it..."—Louise DeSalvo, from the Introduction

About the Author:

Louise DeSalvo is professor of English and Creative Writing at Hunter College and the author of the highly-acclaimed Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work, among other works. DeSalvo is also co-editor of The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cleis Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 157344197X
• ISBN 13: 9781573441971
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 372
• Editor: DeSalvo Louise