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It's hard not to fall in love with Virginia Woolf's writing once you start to read her diaries and letters. Her sense of humor and commons sense are a pleasant and amazing combination. She had her moments with toys and dolls, mentioning toys in "Jacob's Room" and refusing to contribute a miniature volume to the library of the Queen's doll house. She apparently thought the whole doll house project was one of the silliest things she had ever heard, but I've always wondered if there wasn't something more to the story.
Woolf loved parties, costumes, and gossip. She immortalized with gentle parody her friend, Lady Ottoline Morrell, and had a wide circle of friends in The Bloomsbury Group. I've always wondered if she had a grudge against The Royal Family because her relative, James Stephen, was implicated in the Jack the Rippercrimes, and later died in a mental asylum, allegedly from starvation. He was the tutor of The Duke of Clarence, Prince Eddy, was both heir to the throne during his short life and also, according to some, a suspect in The Ripper Homicides. At the time, Princess May of Teck, who later became Queen Mary of the doll house, was engaged to Prince Eddy. I suppose if it were my family implicated in all this I wouldn't want to create a book for the doll house either.
All doll house scandals aside, Woolf addressed waxworks and funeral effigies in "Mrs. Dalloway." These life-sized figures which include Elizabeth I, Elizabeth of York, and Henry VII captured Woolf's imagination, and she also wrote about them in her essay "Reading." Before she became a writer, Woolf studied history, and even taught it briefly.
She took one of her students to Westminster Abbey to see them, and later wrote of the class trip: Yesterday, I did a very melancholy thing--which was to take my working women over the abbey. Only one came! --and we solemnly went round the Chapel and the waxworks together, and saw the mummy of a 40 year old parrot--which make s history so interesting miss!
The effigies, large dolls dressed in the actual clothing of the deceased, or in restored, sometimes inaccurate versions of it, resemble the smaller, elaborately dressed fashion and crèche dolls of the day. Elizabeth of York, mother of Henry VIII, has a long red wig. The headless effigy of Elizabeth I is a study in Elizabethan undergarments. Elizabeth I's garments were once her actually robes, but over the years, they disappeared, until she was dressed in paste and fake jewels according to how the 18th century perceived she should be dressed. It wasn't until 1934 that she was restored. Now, some of the effigies are also displayed without clothing, but their resemblance to early fashion dolls is not lost. Some of these are also featured in Manfred Bachman's excellent book, "Dolls the Wide World Over."
The current issue of "The Virginia Woolf Miscellany," Spring 2014, No. 85, features an article about Woolf and the funeral effigies of Westminster Abbey. The short essay by Lena Kore Schroder, University of Nottingham, is titled "Waxing into Words: Virginia Woolf and the Funeral Effigies at Westminster Abbey." The article can be viewed online here: http:// virginiawoolfmiscellany.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/vwm85spring2014.pdf I was privileged in 1993 to contribute a paper at the annual International Virginia Woolf Society conference, and to see it published in the book published each year containing conference essays. I also was able to contribute to The Miscellany itself a few years ago. Students of custom, costume, manners, doll related figures and literature will profit from a perusal of Woolf's work.
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