When a certain type of novel
is published, readers often wonder, to what extent is it autobiographical? And
if the author is or becomes a literary celebrity, entire industries can develop
around such questions.
Virginia Woolf, because of
her difficult childhood, her episodic mental/emotional instability, her apparently
sexually sterile marriage and her unconventional friends, has been the subject
of endless inquiries along those lines – facilitated by extensive diaries and
letters as well as her fiction, essays and critical works. There’s no shortage
of fodder upon which to chew.
What, then, about Clarissa
Dalloway? Where did she come from and how does she relate to the author
herself?
