Leonard Woolf : A Life - Victoria Glendinning

Synopsis: Many people today know Leonard Woolf mainly through the surname of his wife, Virginia, or his role in supporting her through her mental illness, depicted in films like The Hours. Some critics see him as his wife's oppressor. In Victoria Glendinning's biography, for the first time we see the whole man. As well as being a prominent member of the Bloomsbury group, Leonard was a formidable figure in his own right, first as an innovative civil administrator in Ceylon, then as a writer, leading light of the Fabian society and publisher of TS Eliot, EM Forster, Robert Graves, Katherine Mansfield and of course Virginia Woolf. He was interested in everything and knew everybody. The achievement of Glendinning's book is to make its readers wish that they knew him too.

Review: Having read his letters to Trekkie Parsons I felt I had got to know Leonard pretty well but the letters were written during the last twenty years of his life and only occasionally touched on his childhood and marriage, so it was interesting to be able to go right back to his beginnings. Most interesting of all is his friendship with the other Bloomsbury Group members (Lytton Strachey in particular) and, of course, his marriage to Virginia. It's clear that Leonard was fiercely intelligent and a bit of a leading light amongst his fellow Bloomsburyites.

There are two schools of thought about his impact on Virginia, some feel that without him we would never have had Virginia's great novels and some feel that he had a negative effect on her. It's clear she was often unstable (and had been since childhood) and living with her was like living on a knife edge. There's not many men who could accept the fact that their marriage was never going to be consumated .. let alone men who make that decision themselves based on their wifes mental state (apparently the one and only abandoned attempt happened on their honeymoon.) Leonard was quite a physical man, he'd had plenty of sexual encounters before Virginia but he seemed to relinquish it, if not willingly, then very promptly. Perhaps arrangements were made elsewhere .. if so nothing is known about it but it can't have been easy especially when Virginia became the lover of Vita Sackville West (though how much Leonard knew about the physical side of their relationship is unclear.) He must have been devoted to her because he always seemed to put her needs and wants before his and everything was made as smooth as possible in order for her to be able to write. He was put under terrible strain by Virginia's suicidal tendencies and hysterical behaviour but it was as nothing compared to the strain she herself was under. When she was well she was as gay as a schoolgirl but when she was ill, which was more often than not, she was in a pitiful state. Much depended on her books, she dreaded getting to the end of them and dreaded further the reviews. Leonard's opinion was always the first she sought and he had to tread very, very carefully (though he was a truthful man, so there would often be advice as well as praise .. luckily Leonard nearly always found her writing inspired.) When everything went well she was euphoric and all was right with the world again, when it didn't she crashed and it would take months of recuperation and tender support to get her on her feet again.

Whatever her sexual preferences, it's obvious that Virginia was devoted to Leonard, she wrote a note to him before she died, telling him that he had made her completely happy and that no-one could have done more for her. She feared she was wasting his life as well as her own and felt that she would never get over this last illness (in her diary she had written that she was hearing voices.) It was the opinion of Virginia's family that she would never have lasted as long as she did if Leonard had not been so devoted to her.

The account of her death was very sad, a few weeks before it happened Leonard had found her in the garden dripping wet after what must have been an unsuccessful attempt to drown herself .. she said she had fallen over. Leonard blamed himself after her death for not taking more care of her when the warning signs showed her to be once more sinking into ill health. He was convinced that she would have rallied again.

I have read since that this book contains many inaccuracies which is a shame, the footnotes are prolific as a lot of the writers knowledge seems to have come from other books but it would seem that not everything she has gleaned is correct. Still, despite the errors (and they are mostly to do with names and dates etc) I feel it gave me a more complete picture of Leonard and a better insight into Virginia.