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There's great interest at present in Virginia/Vanessa, because of the success of the novel and film 'The Hours', and Marion Dell and Marion Whybrow have much to say that will both satisfy and feed that interest. The theme of their book, that the two sisters, and particularly Virginia, were influenced all their lives by their St Ives childhood, is persuasive. The background picture of the place and... More

There's great interest at present in Virginia/Vanessa, because of the success of the novel and film 'The Hours', and Marion Dell and Marion Whybrow have much to say that will both satisfy and feed that interest. The theme of their book, that the two sisters, and particularly Virginia, were influenced all their lives by their St Ives childhood, is persuasive. The background picture of the place and their parents and family makes appealing reading. The authors' depiction of character and scene is enhanced by extracts from the sisters' early newspaper, family photographs and letters, diaries and memoirs as well as from Virginia's fiction, all of which combine to bring us into the heart of their family life. There are also many reproductions of paintings, including some of Vanessa's, and old and new photos, some in colour, of St Ives and its surrounding area, including Virginia's famous lighthouse. In 'Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell: Remembering St Ives' the Stephens' St Ives household, with its swarm of children and constant succession of visitors, including friends of Leslie Stephen such as the writer Henry James, is vividly depicted. Later, Marion Whybrow shows us Vanessa enjoying the teaching of John Singer Sargent at the Royal Academy, visiting Picasso, and rebelling against the art of the nineteenth century, until finally basing herself for a lifetime's work as an artist at her family home, Charleston. With Marion Dell we see how Virginia remembered 'the ghosts of her childhood' at St Ives throughout her life. She shows how Virginia was continually drawn back to Cornwall, both physically, staying there for the last time in 1936, and creatively through all her writing.

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