Virginia Woolf (26 page)
Authors: Ruth Gruber
Like many penniless immigrants, Moritz gave up his dream, forsaking medicine and becoming a tailor. He fathered seven more children. Henry, the oldest, and Albert, the youngest, fulfilled their father’s dream, becoming doctors, educated at City College and then Columbia’s College for Physicians and Surgeons. They soon were on the staff of Mount Sinai Hospital, and when Moritz died of cancer, they became specialists in cancer treatment.
Medicine was part of their lives, buying real estate was another. Bachelors, they lived together in a townhouse they owned on East 73rd Street, and amassed a fortune of over $8,000,000. They used that money to purchase rare books and manuscripts, and spread their fortune among a bevy of Jewish and non-Jewish hospitals, libraries, universities, and high schools, also donating two million dollars to the New York Public Library. Henry had already died when Albert A. Berg opened the Berg Collection in Henry’s memory with a moving speech on October 11, 1940:
These books, manuscripts, and letters, together with the appointments in this room, were the dear friends of my late brother and myself. In presenting them to you and the Trustees of the Public Library of our City, and through you to the public it is with the pleasant anticipation that their new friends will use them and love them as much as we did.
The book about the brothers made no mention of Virginia Woolf’s writings. But an e-mail arrived from Isaac Gewirtz on October 29, 2004:
Dear Dr. Gruber,
The history of the Berg’s acquisition of its Virginia Woolf papers is considerably more complex than I suspected or than has been reported. I’ve spent several hours examining the voluminous
correspondence and memos from that period and summarize my findings for you, below. …Twenty-eight bound volumes of Virginia Woolf’s diaries for the period January 1, 1915—March 24, 1941, as well as virtually all of Virginia Woolf’s papers were sold by Leonard Woolf to the rare book and manuscript dealer Hamill and Barker (Chicago) in the spring of 1957, under the stipulations that they should not be resold until after his death, and that the purchaser must be a public or university library.
Later, in 1957, the Berg, in person of Dr. John Gordan, the Berg’s first Curator, entered into negotiations with Hamill & Barker for the papers’ purchase: novels, short stories, essays, correspondence (incoming and any copies of her outgoing), and diaries … Only a few significant manuscripts were absent from the transaction, most notably The Voyage Out (which was in the Bodleian), Night and Day, Orlando, and A Room of One’s Own. In 1962, Leonard Woolf donated to the Berg a part of the original manuscript of The Voyage Out. In the early 1960s, the Berg purchased Night and Day and A Room of One’s Own, as well as Notes on Books and a 50-page portion of the original draft and the various versions, in typescript, of Between the Acts, from H&B … Though Woolf did not object to the Berg’s purchase of the diaries with the rest of the papers, he insisted that the diaries not be delivered to the Berg until after his death, though Gordan had explained to H&B (who communicated this to Woolf) that Library policy forbade paying for material prior to receiving it. The Library and H&B surmounted this obstacle by stating in the purchase agreement that H&B would deliver all of the papers specified except for the diaries, that the Berg would pay for the papers delivered, and that the diaries would be delivered and paid for after Mr. Woolf’s death.
In 1964, the Berg purchased from H&B two slim diaries for 1905 and for the Sept. 7-Oct. 1, 1919, which are not part of the 28-volume series. In 1968, the Berg
purchased from H&B The Years; ca. 120 letters to Leonard Woolf; and 5 letters to Virginia Woolf. In 1980, we purchased two autograph and five typed undated letters [1928-1932] to Nancy Pearn, and in 1993, a typed letter to Quentin Bell.This summarizes the acquisition history of the great bulk of our Virginia Woolf papers, but it is a story that should probably be told someday in greater detail. If I ever find the time, I will attempt to do so. For now, I hope that the information I’ve provided will suit your needs. It has been a delight working with you and I hope that we will soon have the opportunity to renew our acquaintance.
With best wishes,
Isaac Gewirtz
I owe Isaac Gewirtz my deepest gratitude. His detective work had answered the question of how Virginia Woolf’s diaries and letters crossed the Atlantic and were now safely guarded and cherished in the oak-paneled walls of the Berg Collection.
There are numerous other people to whom I owe thanks in writing this book. Foremost is my editor, Philip Turner, whose enthusiasm and advice have been equaled only by his constant but well-meaning pressure urging me to meet my deadline. My agent, Michael Carlisle, was equally enthusiastic and helpful. Much gratitude goes to my assistants, especially Liesl Yamaguchi, who was a joy to work with, efficient and disciplined, a straight-A sophomore at Columbia University, who divided her time between classes and taking dictation from me, typing as fast as I talked; Maressa Gershowitz, my research assistant and archivist, who found the VW letters and who raced through my filing cabinets, each time finding exactly what I was looking for; and Leah Krauss, a Barnard College freshman who, like Liesl, could type as fast as I talked, and who was willing to run back and forth between Barnard and my apartment to work on the Introduction often five hours at a time.
I am grateful to my niece Dava Sobel, the gifted author of
Longitude
and
Galileo’s Daughter
; to my good friend Heidi Stella, junior dean at Oxford University; to my good friend Barbara Ribakove-Gordon, a professional editor and writer with whom I
made two trips to Ethiopia to help in the rescue of Ethiopian Jews; to Dan Levin, novelist, biographer, poet, and teacher at CW Post, whom I first met during World War II when he was a marine correspondent; to his son Forrest Levin, a teacher of math at the college level and a wiz at helping me with my computer; to my step-daughter Barbara Seaman, the feminist health expert, who spent forty years in the wilderness decrying the indiscriminate use of hormones; to the members of the Writers Workshop, especially Gerald Jonas, who writes the science fiction column for the
New York Times Book Review
and whose critiques are always on target; to my good friends Dr. David Peretz and Dr. Robert Naiman, who helped me understand some of the symptoms of bipolar disorder, and that one of its symptoms is to end the pain by committing suicide; Dr. Alice Ginott Cohn, a psychologist and loyal friend.
Of course, I cannot fail to mention Virginia Woolf herself, nor her graciousness in the three letters to me and the magical twilight I spent with her and her husband Leonard as she lay in front of the fireplace at 52 Tavistock Square.
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A
activity vs. passivity,
107-108
Aids to Reflection
(Coleridge),
146
,
147
anti-Semitism,
see also
Nazi Germany
of Virginia Woolf,
35
Aristotelian unities,
111-113
art, significance of,
122-123
Pride and Prejudice
,
155-156
authors, male, influence of,
88-89
B
Balderston, John Lloyd,
Berkeley Square
,
114
Barnes & Noble,
40
Bell, Julian,
30
Berg, Albert,
165
Berg Collection, New York Public Library,
25
,
29-30
,
164-167
origins of,
164-166
acquisition of Woolf papers,
165-167
Berg, Moritz,
165
Bergson, Henri,
109-111
Berkeley Square
(Balderston),
114
“Biographical Sketch of Dr. Ruth Gruber” (promotional pamphlet),
48-51
bipolar disorder,
9
,
10
,
34-35
,
35-36
,
168
Bronte, Charlotte,
Jane Eyre
,
67
Bronte, Emily,
64
Brothers: The Origins of the Henry W and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library
(Szladits),
164-165
Browne, Sir Thomas,
Pseudoxia
Epidemica
,
146
Urn Burial
,
90-91
Burke, Edmund,
Speech on the Nabob of Arcot’s Debts
,
86-87
C
Carroll and Graf Publishers,
163
citation of works, in Woolf,
84-87
,
91-92
incorporation of,
87-88
classicism
flaws of,
128
vs. romanticism,
125-129
clothing, symbolism of,
140-141
Cohn, Alice Ginott,
168
Coleridge, Samuel,
Aids to Reflection,
146
,
147
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
(Twain),
114
consciousness, stream of,
107-108
,
111
correspondence
Barnes and Noble, letter of reference,
40
Isaac Gewirtz to Ruth Gruber,
165-167
Margaret West to Ruth Gruber,
23-24
reproduction of document,
42
Nigel Nicolson to Ruth Gruber,
31-32
reproduction of documents,
52
,
54
P. Bolsher to Ruth Gruber,
14-15
reproduction of document,
39
Ruth Gruber to Margaret West,
24
reproduction of document,
43
Ruth Gruber to Nigel Nicolson,
53
Ruth Gruber to Virginia Woolf,
23
,
32-33
reproduction of documents,
41
,
45
,
46
Virginia Woolf to Ethel Smyth,
35
Virginia Woolf to Julian Bell,
30
Virginia Woolf to Leonard Woolf,
35-36
Virginia Woolf to Ruth Gruber,
26-27
,
29
,
33-34
reproduction of documents,
44
,
45
,
47
creativity, of women,
154-155
,
156
critics
satire of,
78-79
D
day, single, symbolism of,
130-131
De Quincey, Thomas,
Dream-Fugue
,
91
,
93
,
95
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
(Gibbon),
85
diaries, of Virginia Woolf,
25-26
,
31
,
32
,
34
Dostoevsky, Fyodor,
Stavrogin’s Confession
,
86
Downhill All the Way
(L. Woolf),
34
Dream-Fugue
(De Quincey),
91
,
93
,
95
dreams and illusions,
105
dress, symbolism of,
140-141
duality,
124-139
E
egotism vs. integrity,
65
Einfuhrung in die Psychoanalyse
(Freud),
147
Einstein, Albert,
9
Relativitätstheorie
,
114-115
Eliot, T. S.,
2-3
The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock
,
88
emotionalism vs. realism,
106
Ethiopian refugees,
168
Euphues and his England
(Lyly),
90
F
femininity,
67-68
expression in literature,
138
feminism,
155-158
. see
also
sexism
Woolf’s influence on,
9
Feuchtwanger, Lion,
The Oppermanns
,
9
Fielding, Henry,
62
food, descriptions of,
141-142
formalism,
141-142
Freud, Sigmund,
Einfuhrung in die Psychoanalyse
,
147
Fry, Roger,
2
G
Galileo’s Daughter
(Sobel),
167
gender changes, in
Orlando
,
93
,
94
genius,
115-116
genius, quality of,
115-116
Georgian writers,
97
Gibbon, Edward,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
,
84-85
Goering, Hermann,
4
Gordan, John,
166
Greene, Robert,
The History of Orlando Furioso
,
78
Gruber, Ruth
in Europe,
12-18
“Biographical Sketch” (promotional pamphlet),
48-51