Virginia Woolf's Apprenticeship

A great part of the pleasure of reading Virginia Woolf's Apprenticeship is the knowledge that Daugherty brings to bear on Woolf's early life through the beginning of her career.

--Jeanne Dubino, Appalachian State University "Virginia Woolf Miscellany"

Drawing on deep research into the social history of women's lives and of education, Daugherty shows with superb attention to detail how Virginia Stephen's early experiences of teaching and of being taught nourished the seeds that flowered as Virginia Woolf, "an essayist compelled to teach." This is impeccable and important scholarship.

--Mark Hussey, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Pace University

This electrifying magnum opus illuminates Virginia Woolf's formative experience of teaching working-class adult students while starting her own career as a freelance book reviewer. Beth Rigel Daugherty shows how helping and identifying with novice learners influenced Woolf's nonfiction aesthetic. Over many subsequent years, Woolf made a striking attempt to write essays in ways that would welcome ordinary readers.
Virginia Woolf's Apprenticeship launches a new era in the way Woolf is assessed and will stimulate scholars, teachers, and writers in the broad and burgeoning genre of creative nonfiction. Deeply researched historically and biographically, it contributes beyond Woolf studies to the fields of memoir, personal essay, journalism, and pedagogy. Warm of manner and lively of style, it has a bold and ambitious purpose: to help us see Virginia Woolf anew as a working, learning, growing person and writer. Woolf emerges as someone deeply concerned with connecting with others regardless of their class and gender, thereby attempting to transcend the limits of her family, her heritage, and her time. Showing this is the book's larger, remarkable achievement.

--Richard Gilbert, MFA, nonfiction author, teacher, and publisher