The Wise Virgins: A Story of Words, Opinions and a Few Emotions

by Leonard Woolf

Significant for its fictionalized portraits of Leonard and Virginia Woolf and other Bloomsbury members, this novel illuminates the author's state of mind after his transition from a middle-class Jewish background in Putney to the more liberated Bloomsbury society

Genres: Fiction, Classics, British Literature, Literary Fiction, Novels

247 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1914

About the author

Leonard Sidney Woolf was a noted British political theorist, author, publisher (The Hogarth Press), and civil servant, but perhaps best-known as husband to author Virginia Woolf.

Reviews

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are clear parallels with Leonard Woolf's life in this, his second and final novel, in which the Jewish protagonist, Harry Davis, is torn between virginal intellectual Camilla Lawrence and eager, shallow Gwen Garland; Harry is a self-portrait, while Camilla is meant to portray Virginia Woolf.

I cannot honestly say that I liked this book. I found Harry himself unpleasant and therefore unsympathetic; he rails against society, cannot free himself from its strictures, and blames everyone but himself (especially Camilla and Gwen).

And let's face it, I really can't ignore the autobiographical aspects, though I feel that I ought to be able to. It was impossible to forget (and would have been impossible not to figure out had I not known in advance) whom Woolf's characters were based on, and it's dismaying to see someone painting his wife as a frigid, remote maiden who ought never to get married. I could feel some understanding of Woolf's scathing portrait of British society, both of Gwen's shallow milieu and Camilla's circle of Bloomsburyish intellectuals, but I couldn't reconcile myself to his treatment of his characters and therefore of the real people on whom the characters are based.

[Shauna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is such a depressing read. The main character, Harry has few redeeming features. Like many clever young men he sneers at the daily lives of those around him. He thinks his parents are pitiful and when his family become friends with a neighbour, a widow with four unmarried daughters, he is damning in his assessment of their personalities and their hopes and dreams. He seeks out the company of the dispassionate and aloof Camilla and her family - a very obvious fictional representation of Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury set . Fluctuating between the two groups Harry falls in love but despite his artistic and intellectual intentions he ends up in the same rut as everyone else.
The novel raises many questions but the most depressing thing about it is that it offers no solutions and no hope for a change towards a society where women can become independent and choose their own path through life.

[Kit Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Wise Virgins is a semi-autobiographical novel written whilst Leonard Woolf was on honeymoon with his new wife, Virginia Woolf. The character of Harry Davis relates to Leonard and Camilla Lawrence to Virginia. The novel is set around the romantic grapplings of an artist in his 20s: does he settle for the sweet and reliable girl next door (Gwen) or set his ambitions on Camilla, who hails from an intoxicatingly artistic family.

The novel juxtaposes Harry’s suburban life against the bohemian life of the Lawrences in Bloomsbury. The former disgusts him with its predictability and mundanity whilst the latter world of intellectual sparring, piles of dusty novels, and quick references to the artistic world, draws Harry like a starving man who at last spies sustenance.

Harry is well-read to a fault and much of the novel centres on his wry and scathing observations of the life he is on track for. Like many a precocious youth before him (a label I’m sure he would swiftly reject!), he shares his pessimistic intellectually snobbish views of the world with sweet young Gwen, lending her books by Dostoevsky and other authors concerned with the dark void of the soul.

Gwen, although not in the state of ennui that Harry is, is just bored enough with her life to be taken in by his morose charms. She gets caught up in his Byron- and Shelley-inspired dark diagnosis of life around them and decides that to pursue love and passion as well as to live for the journey, not the destination, strikes a noble path.

The Wise Virgins centres on love and sex in a world where you are taught to value the institution of marriage above all else. It also explores the differing freedoms of men and women at the turn of the last century, the value we place on culture and being cultured, and how Harry thinks the world perceives him as a Jew. I think its intention was to be a mixture of a raw release of secrets and feelings on the part of Woolf as well as a way of laughing at some of the more ridiculous traits he displayed in his youth.

Some reviewers have mentioned finding the character of Harry to be too cruel and too loathsome to be believable. I actually found that his mannerisms and overly-affected persona of a starved-soul reminded me of a few young men I met in my youth. This personality type was irritatingly prevalent in Cambridge, where I grew up, and many families there have some link to the university and the world of academia. The only necessary amendment being the addition of a Smiths t-shirt (the 80s were very much having a revival) and maybe a light wisp of eyeliner.

Whilst I wouldn’t cast myself as either the quietly artistic Camilla or the ‘uneducated’ girl-next-door Gwen, I did enjoy the parallels I saw with relationships in my own adolescence as well as the caustic satire on suburban life and familial expectations painted by Harry’s woeful assessment of those around him.

Persephone books are always a pleasure to read for both their aesthetic value and the wealth of wonderful storytelling they uncover and reprint. It’s also hard not to be always thinking of Virginia Woolf and the notoriously extreme impact this novel had on her when she read it.

Atmosphere: This is a novel to be read in a balmy summer garden with heady aroma of wisteria in the air. A glass of citrusy white wine would be a nice touch; but make sure the neighbours don’t see, or there might be talk.

I shared a photo and favourite quote on my Instagram @folklore_kit

[Toast · Rating 2 out of 5]

From the off, I have to say I am not a fan of Virginia Woolf's fiction, had never read any of Leonard Woolf's fiction nor have been a devotee of the Bloomsbury Set. I have admired their Hogarth Press, their place in the Literary canon and have been exposed to the PR, both positive and negative, surrounding them.
This novel is dull, the characters I dislike especially the ones that wander around intellectualising about 'the real', knowing they wouldn't know 'the real' if they fell over it. However, I read on to the end. That is because LW can write. It is deeply indulgent, deeply judgemental and deeply hypocritical.
Toast

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harry Davis is a young man who despises his middle-class family and their suburban friends, and is drawn to an intellectual, leisured family whose daughters are a writer and a painter (like Virginia Stephen and her sister Vanessa). By showing off to his mother's neighbours, he triggers consequences he never intended.

This is a semi-autobiographical novel, and Leonard Woolf does not paint a pleasant picture of himself. The unattainable-seeming Camilla, the Virginia figure, comes off better, but if his wife wasn't fond of this book, I wouldn't be surprised. His family certainly hated his portrayal of them.

[Mientras Leo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Todo un descubrimiento

https://www.zendalibros.com/las-virge...

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have been looking forward to reading this book for a few years but lethargy kept me from ordering it. Unfortunately, it was one of those experiences that was most pleasurable in its planning and anticipation.

The idea of gaining insight into Virginia and Leonard Woolf through this novel was very appealing to me. I have always been interested in the Bloomsbury Group in a very general way because of their relative exoticism for the period. The only Virginia Woolf novel that I truly loved was Orlando, but for some reason I approached this book with a predisposition to like it. So, I was so disappointed to find the characters unattractive stereotypes and the writing less than engaging.

Woolf's protagonist, Harry, was apparently so close to the author that family members discouraged him from publishing. Not only was his self-portrait unappealing and self- loathing, but he managed no sympathy in his sketches of his friends and family. I was very uncomfortable with Woolf's ruminations on his place as a Jew in society and, as critics have mentioned, it is quite thought- provoking that this cynical look at love and marriage was written while on his honeymoon. I would be interested in learning more about Virginia and Lronard Woolf's life but , frankly, I already feel like I have spent too much time with these people.

[Patrice]

Well, damn. So that's why Leonard Woolf never wrote another novel.



Virginia Woolf had her first serious mental breakdown two weeks after reading the manuscript of this, her new husband's second book, whose characters are based (or copied) on the women in his life, including Virginia.



If that were me, I think I'd have a breakdown too, just out of spite.



In terms of the writing: a bit forced, but not outrightly bad. He can't begin to compare to his wife; however I would call this Mr. Woolf's eloquent surrender to Mrs. Woolf's formidable talent.

[Julie Bozza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Persephone make a beautiful book, and Leonard Woolf is an exquisite writer. It's difficult not to read this through the prism of biography, and maybe the point is that we shouldn't. Fascinating to consider, either way, both the good choices and the bad.

[Brigitte Van Cauter · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5*

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodness! Persephone certainly publish some fascinating and hugely readable books! The Wise Virgins - Pesephone no 43 - is beautifully written to start with. Added to that is the tantalising idea that it is said to be, in part at least, autobiographical. The novel concerns young adults, their feelings of restlessness and disappointment in the narrow, restricted world they inhabit. The novel explores, with great honesty, what few choices there were for young people at this time. their lives regulated by convention, they had little option but to marry and settle down to family life. For those intellectuals and artists, who might want more than mere middle class domesticity out of life, the world seemed a dull and pointless place.

[Lesley Glaister · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Wise Virgins by Leonard Woolf, is a real eye-opener onto the mindset of the Bloomsbury set. It’s set in a fictitious suburb of London and is about the change wrought by a Jewish family moving next door to a Christian widowed mother of four unmarried adult daughters. This was written in 1912, the year after Leonard married Virginia and one of the characters is based on her. The story itself is fairly gentle and I was absorbed rather than riveted; it was the worldview with its casual prejudice and deep intellectual snobbery that I found staggering. Leonard’s writing isn’t a patch on Virginia’s but for anyone interested in this class, period and milieu its fascinating.

[José · Rating 1 out of 5]

Un bodrío romanticón de regional preferente. Virginia, no lo entiendo. ¿Como pudiste?

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gwen Garland and her sisters in a conventional London suburb hear the news that the Davis family is coming to live next door. Will this be the thing Gwen is looking for to disrupt her existence? Harry Davis gives Gwen Dostoyevsky to read, but is preoccupied with Camilla Lawrence, whose dispassionate freedom and cultured family open new doors to him. Beneath this surface of thoughts and feelings, romantic and sexual desires are driving all three as they interact with one another…

Leonard Woolf’s novel occupies a space somewhere between his wife’s Night and Day, EM Forster, and DH Lawrence in its mix of social comedy/satire, class analysis, and attempt to bring into the English novel expressions of consciousness and sexual desire. I was absolutely drawn into the world he creates, but reading it in the Persephone Press edition was struck by the other note in it - the Kingsley Amis note of men who define women by their relationship to those men themselves. After an opening which gives us Gwen as a character familiar from many other Persephone books - the middle class girl who knows there must be more to the world than her narrow education and sphere of action - the focus shifts to Camilla, but ends by being firmly set on Harry, who wants sex but also seems to want to despise everyone he meets: everyone is too stupid, too sensual, too intellectual, too feeling, too devoid of feeling… . Gwen and Camilla stop having any voice of their own as Harry finds himself trapped into a particular course of action.

In some ways this book is fascinating for Woolf’s exploration of his own path not taken - what if he had chosen sexual gratification and suburban convention instead of cultural freedom and intellect above passion with Virginia? And its depiction of Bloomsbury as bored people lounging in chairs talking is a necessary counterpart to the sense Bloomsburyites have of themselves as struggling frightfully hard in the face of great obstacles such as social duties and country weekends. But it is also a book to be argued with - I want a sequel that shows just how wrong Leonard Woolf and his fictional alter ego are to set some Lawrentian notion of getting a good shagging at the heart of female fulfilment and achievement.

[Katy Wheatley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this an interesting book. I can't say that I loved it. The characters were uniformly unsympathetic and the story was reasonably depressing. It is very good on the strictures of the class system and on prejudice in general against your faith or your sex or both but it was not a comfortable read, particularly knowing that Woolf himself was Jewish and that the character of Harry was modelled on himself, I was baffled at the anger he seems to express against Jewishness in general. It is generally agreed that while Woolf is Harry, Camilla in the book is modelled on Virginia Woolf and you can see why people were so interested in it in terms of poring over it for clues as to the nature of their relationship.

[Zara Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s… fine. I understand the story as it was being told—the choice, as it stood, between the romantic, bohemian lifestyle and suburban safety, and how easily one loses oneself to the trappings of the latter. I just wish there had been more of the wildness and less of the mundane. I felt for Harry, he deserved a far better lot than he got.
It’s a book where not a lot happens but at the same time, it does.
I read it in about twenty-four hours. I enjoyed it fine. What really brings the rating down for me is the near-obsession with male vs female mannerisms and the god-awful representation of Jews. It was uncomfortable regardless of how engaged I was.

[Emily Swinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was okay. I couldn’t really get into it that much, wasn’t calling me to read it all the time in the way I hoped it would. Some really good bits, kind of predictable in what it was trying to do and say for its time and for who was writing it (btw hello Leonard what are u doing here I had no idea he was a novelist too), but also some bits quite meh. You’d best leave it to ur wife, Virginia is way better xx

[Melodie Roschman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stylistically well-written, quick to read, and deeply frustrating. As an autobiographical novel, the scandal has worn off somewhat, and I simply found myself deeply upset at what a total bastard "Harry" is, and wondering how much Leonard realizes he is. Poor, poor Gwen, trapped by the moody self-indulgent sad boy without the freedoms of women's suffrage, education, and the sexual revolution.

[Joseph Spuckler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable book with the battle of going with society or doing your own thing. It is pretty progressive for the time it was written and paints and picture of suburbia in much the same way as it exists now. Looking back a hundred years life, and life's problems and choices remain prety much the same.

[Rosie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I actually found this a bit difficult to read though I find it hard to say why. I read it a little dispassionately as I didn't find any of the characters likeable.

[Ali · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hated all the characters (save Gwen), but it's certainly well-written.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good, very well-written novel from Leonard Woolf.

[Ellen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think Mr Woolf was very wise in leaving the novel writing to Mrs Woolf.

[Samantha Butts · Rating 2 out of 5]

He really wrote this on his honeymoon??

[Jeslyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked it, didn't love it. "Woe is me, all life is misery" wears thin after a while. Good writing though.

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. An autofiction based on his courtship of Virginia.

[Marie Nagera · Rating 1 out of 5]

Plat vraiment très plat, je n'ai pas réussi à finir. L'intrigue n'est pas intéressante

[Kay Robart · Rating 3 out of 5]

See my review here:

https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2019...

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this quite a bit. It doesn't enfold you in that constant tide of genius that you get with "Woolf" (I.e. Virginia ), whose prose is so delicate and subtle. This is more satirical and less elegant, but the concerns and stylistic experiments are very much parallel with her first novel, The Voyage Out, written at the same time. Above all, the characters are very vivd, and there's a lot of sympathy flying around. Anyway yes you should know that the principals are based on real people, the family - Leonard's mother apparently had a total fit after reading it, and Virginia became severely depressed.

[adeline Bronner]

Il y a ce sentiment de familiarité dans cette description de l’ennui, de la vacuité, du conformisme et de l’étroitesse d’esprit de ceux qui se pensent supérieurs intellectuellement, moralement ou socialement. Un siècle d’écart et ces discussions oiseuses, ces sentiments médiocres semblent furieusement actuels, des détails ont changé à la marge, mais l’égoïsme et l’égotisme semblent les mêmes.
Le ton incisif, parfois méchant est la seule chose qui ferait scandale aujourd’hui. Le portrait des juifs, mais aussi de la grosse Mme Brown, des mariages, des familles provoqueraient l’ire des reseauteurs, mais ne changerait rien à leur acuité.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️