Christopher hitchens virginia woolf biography

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The Captive Mind

Culture

Edward Upward was one of the only writers of the ’30s to deal with Britain’s elephant in the room—fascism—but his career was forever warped by his communism.

By Christopher Hitchens

Illustration by Alex Williamson

Early in the 1930s, when he was managing the Hogarth Press for Leonard and Virginia Woolf and preparing the anthology—New Signatures—that would be received as a species of generational manifesto, John Lehmann wrote that he had

heard with the tremor of excitement that an entomologist feels at the news of an unknown butterfly sighted in the depths of the forest, that behind Auden and Spender and Isherwood stood the even more legendary figure of … Edward Upward.

In that reference to the literary-political celebrities of the ’30s, Upward received his due. In a once-famous attempt to get the whole set into one portmanteau term, which was Roy Campbell’s coinage of MacSpaunday to comprehend the names of Louis MacNeice, Stephen Spender, W. H. Auden, and Cecil Day-Lewis, Upward was omitted altogether (as was his friend and closest collaborator, Christopher Isherwood). On the eve of Valentine’s Day this year, at the age of 105, the last British author to have been born in the Edwardian epoch died

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Virginia Woolf's intellectual development and educational background played a pivotal role in shaping her into the renowned literary figure she would become. Woolf's education was significantly unconventional; her father, Leslie Stephen, himself an erudite literary figure and editor, nurtured an environment rich in intellectual rigor and literary stimulation. Woolf benefited immensely from the informal education provided in the family home, which housed an extensive collection of literature and intellectual visitors. Woolf did not receive a formal education in a conventional sense, particularly due to the period's gender norms which often restricted young women from attending formal institutions. However, she was autodidactic and avidly continued her education independently. Her father's impressive library became a sanctuary where she developed her literary tastes, consuming a wide array of classical literature, modern thought, and philosophical discourse. This access to a wealth of knowledge fostered her analytical skills and ignited her passion for writing. The intellectual dynamism continued outside the home when Woolf was exposed to London's vibrant literary and intellectual circles. After the passing of her parents, Woolf and her siblings moved to the Bloomsbury area in L