The voice of Virginia Woolf (1937)

by Aaron Geiger | 30th November 2011

Photo of Virginia Woolf by frederico novaro, via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons content

Via The London Library on Twitter:

A 1937 recording of Virginia Woolf’s voice with slide show of photographs from her life. Eerie & wonderful. #LLMember

From the upload description on YouTube:

This is the only surviving recording of Virginia Woolf’s voice. It is part of a BBC radio broadcast from April 29th, 1937. The talk was called “Craftsmanship” and was part of a series entitled “Words Fail Me”.
The audio is accompanied by a slideshow of photographs of Virginia Woolf.

The text was published as an essay in “The Death of the Moth and Other Essays” (1942), and I’ve transcribed the recorded portion here:
http://atthisnow.blogspot.com/2009/06/craftsmanship-virginia-woolf.html

http://davidglensmith.blogspot.com/ David-Glen

Thanks for this post. I use her material in both levels of my Composition classes. I strongly feel Woolf’s sensibilities are essential for beginning writers– even if you dislike her style, her craft should be respected.