This Summer, I made a fabulous visit to Virginia Woolf’s house (Monk’s House) in Rodmell near Lewes (East Sussex). Virginia and her husband Leonard Woolf bought this 16th century house in 1919. Small rooms, with a lot of furniture and objects having belonged to them, especially furniture painted by her sister Vanessa Bell. They received many visitors, most of them connected to the Bloomsbury group. The visit starts with the living-room, then the dining-room, the kitchen and Virginia Woolf’s bedroom (she bought the whole collection of Shakespeare’s works). The gardens are lovely, with charming corners and ponds. The orchard abounds with apples and pears. Virginia had a writing lodge at the back of the garden, hence the title of one of her books : “a room of one’s own” (1929) and her famous quote : “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction”. That house and the gardens really immerse you in her universe, with a sensation of isolation, leaving a feeling of melancholy. She suffered from depression and drowned herself in the nearby river Ouse in 1941.
“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction”…
I have the room of my own but I don’t have the money ! I still intend to write fiction though !!!