Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the 'Six Articles on London Life,' that Virginia Woolf published in Good Housekeeping magazine between December 1931 and December 1932: 'The Docks of London', published in December 1931; 'Oxford Street Tide' in January 1932; 'Great Men's Houses' in March 1932; 'Abbeys and Cathedrals' in May 1932; '"This is the House of Commons"' in October 1932; and 'Portrait of a Londoner' in December 1932. In 1999, when only the first four volumes of Woolf's essays had been collected, edited and published by Andrew McNeillie for the Hogarth Press, Leila Brosnan published Reading Virginia Woolf's Essays and Journalism and recognized the need to investigate Woolf's essays. In 2000, Elena Gualtieri added most valuable critical appraisal of Woolf's essays with Virginia Woolf's Essays: Sketching the Past, which follows the path of Beth Carole Rosenberg's Virginia Woolf and Samuel Johnson and Juliette Dusinberre's Virginia Woolf's Renaissance.