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Alison Light

Mrs Woolf and the Servants Hardcover – 2 Aug. 2007

by Alison Light (Author)

4.4 79 ratings

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Loathing, anger, shame – and deep affection: Virginia Woolf’s relationship with her servants was central to her life. Like thousands of her fellow Britons she relied on live-in domestics for the most intimate of daily tasks. Her cook and parlour maid relieved her of the burden of housework and without them she might never have become a writer. But unlike many of her contemporaries Virginia Woolf was frequently tormented by her dependence on servants. Uniquely, she explored her violent, often vicious, feelings in her diaries, novels and essays. What, the reader might well wonder, was it like for the servants to live with a mistress who so hated giving her orders, and who could be generous and hostile by turns?Through the prism of the writer’s life and work, Alison Light explores the volatile, emotional territory which is the hidden history of domestic service. Compared to most employers in Britain between the wars, Leonard and Virginia Woolf were free and easy. Life in the Bloomsbury circle of writers and artists was often fun. Yet despite being liberal in outlook, these were also households where the differences in upbringing and education were acute: employers and servants were still ‘us’ and ‘them’. The women who worked for the Woolfs, like other domestic servants, have usually been relegated to the margins of history, yet unearthing their lives reveals fascinating stories: of Sophie Farrell, the Victorian cook and ‘family treasure’, who ended her days in a London bed-sit; Lottie Hope, the parlour maid, a foundling, who’d been left on a doorstep like a parcel; and Nellie Boxall, the Woolfs’ cook, who was finally dismissed after sixteen years of rows and reconciliations, only to find herself a more glamorous job. Mrs Woolf and the Servants is a riveting and highly original study of one of Britain’s greatest literary modernists. Ultimately, though, it is also a moving and eloquent testimony to the ways in which individual creativity always needs the support of others.

Print length

400 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Fig Tree
Publication date

2 Aug. 2007
Dimensions

3.81 x 15.88 x 23.5 cm
ISBN-10

0670867179
ISBN-13

978-0670867172
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Alison Light
163
Paperback
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Product description

From the Inside Flap

'Have I ever felt such wild misery as when talking to servants?
Partly caused by rage at our general ineptitude - we the governors - having
laden ourselves with such a burden, at having let grow on our shoulders
such a cancer, such a growth, such a disease as the poor are.'

From the Back Cover

`Offers us an invaluable glimpse into the hidden history of
domestic service in an absorbing narrative, beautifully written with the
sensibility of a poet' The Times

`Compelling' Telegraph

`Illuminating' Harper's Bazaar

`Fascinating, beautifully written and meticulously researched' Literary
Review

`Light has uncovered material that is fascinating and important, both in
itself and for what it tells us about Bloomsbury and domestic service...an
absorbing investigation, serious, radical and feminist in its politics,
entertaining in its delivery' The Independent

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Fig Tree; Reprint edition (2 Aug. 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0670867179
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0670867172
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 3.81 x 15.88 x 23.5 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 1,573,748 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 17,373 in Literary Theory & Movements
- 26,409 in Women's Biographies

Customer reviews:
4.4 79 ratings

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4.4 out of 5

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SJBSussex

Scholarly, readable and very moving.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 5 May 2017

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I found book scholarly, immensely readable and extremely moving. The book begins with an account of Sophie Farrell, servant to Julia Stephen (mother to Virginia Woolf). I cannot get out of my head the description of the rural poverty Sophie escaped: children whipped to work in the fields, families lucky not to starve. Light presents her material judiciously in the context of the times, without too much moral indignation. Her account is all the more powerful because of the restraint shown. As a reader, I felt emotional on behalf of these forgotten servants whose toil made Bloomsbury’s free-thinking possible. The servant characters have stayed with me, especially Virginia Woolf’s long-time cook Nelly Boxall, expected to manage on her own without her former helper Lottie as Woolf’s own income increased. Woolf seems to have viewed her demands for help as hysterical. Both she and her sister shared a snobbish perception of servants’ inferiority without much attempt to grasp their social and educational disadvantages. They shared the general blindness to servants' needs among the supposedly liberal spirits of Bloomsbury. Yet they did try harder than their contemporaries to understand working women. This is not a tale of straightforward oppression. Woolf seems genuinely to have tried to see Nelly’s position, though bizzarely blinded by social preconceptions; just as she supported the Cooperative Women’s Movement while admitting an utter lack of common understanding. Meanwhile, Woolf’s sister, artist Vanessa Bell, took her servant Grace Germany to France and helped her learn French. Yet Grace served Vanessa faithfully for many years without ever getting a pay rise, living with her husband and son in one room, washing under the kitchen tap and having their weekly bath on Fridays when the family dinner had been served, finally unable to afford a cottage when Bell died (Grace one of the few mourners at her funeral). The author brings out how servants were expected to show devotion yet received no security and little understanding. I liked to think of Nelly moving on into the service of film stars who valued her, then living in a comfortable. retirement with Lottie. Alison Light has also attempted to trace other forgotten lives of the servants of the Woolfs and others. She grasps the nettle of servant’s own conservatism, snobbery and identification with their masters. In conjunction with the work of Pamela Fox and others, this excellent book sheds light on a section of the working class only just starting to receive the consideration long given to the industrial sectors

10 people found this helpful

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Judith Jacks

The horror of dirt...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 10 June 2009

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Alison Light took ten years to write this riveting study of Virginia Woolf's turbulent relationships with her servants (Penguin, 2007). These working-class women were a revelation to the writer. Although she was a Labour Party member and a feminist, some of her comments in her dairies and letters make uncomfortable reading. She notes their bad teeth and winces at their noisy habits. 'What an irony.' she wrote to her brother-in-law during WW1, 'if they should escape and we should be killed...'

Like most of her class she depended upon live-in domestic help to empty her chamber-pot, make her bed and cook her meals. 'Is Sophy away now?' her sister enquired when one maid took a brief holiday, '...if so, what are you doing for food?'

Right up until the 1930s it was common for working-class girls to go 'into service' with a wealthy household. This army of skivvies toiled up and down flights of stairs with hot water for the family's baths before they began all the cleaning, shopping and cooking. If they were lucky they had a half-day off on Sundays. There were few other employment options, particularly if you came from a disadvantaged background.

Virginia Woolf once confessed that she had 'no notion, having always had a servant, of the horror of dirt.' Alison Light, a professor whose grandmother was in domestic service, has written a thoughtful book which adds to our knowledge of the Bloomsbury author and also rounds out the picture of those women who had to become all too familiar with the particular horror of other people's dirt.

8 people found this helpful

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amanda.bingley@btinternet.com

Excellent book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 28 June 2020

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Focusing on women in service and their relationship between those they served, this is a most fascinating exploration of a previously ignored aspect of life with Virginia Woolf, her family and friends. Alison Light is an exemplary historian having researched her subject thoroughly and from a wide range of sources. Recommend this book to anyone looking for a deeper social history and commentary of Bloomsbury and the Woolfs.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 23 January 2015

Verified Purchase

I am reading this at the moment and am enjoying the insights Light gives into the personal life of Virginia Woolf and her relationship with Sophie and other servants. An examination of the lives of the thousands of women who worked in domestic service is long overdue and this is an interesting development after reading Common People. More please!

3 people found this helpful

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Jane Brooke

A textbook example of good 'life writing'

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 9 April 2019

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I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book because of its quality of being a faint glimpse through a window that led inside the world of Virginia Woolf. I felt that through the impressive research undertaken by author Alison Light, I could begin to relate to the woman that lies behind the cliché mask of the 'Bloomsbury set.'

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David Gurr

Can she live without servants?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 13 September 2019

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A very interesting book, chosen by the Monks House book group for our next meeting. Some interesting insights into VW and husband

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 25 February 2015

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This book is absolutely splendid, both for admirers of Virginia Woolf's writing, and the social history of the servant class from the 1800's onwards. Alison Light's writing has the light touch and humour, honesty, and the scholarly deep research that guarantees reading pleasure.

2 people found this helpful

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Arundtin

Excellent book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 30 January 2017

Verified Purchase

Very well written and a very interesting insight into the lives and the relationships of the servants who lived with the Woolf's.

One person found this helpful

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Mrs Woolf and the Servants Hardcover – 2 Aug. 2007

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