INSCRIBED TO OTTOLINE MORRELL
Mrs. Dalloway
Hogarth Press, 1925.
First edition. Original maroon cloth with gilt titles to the spine. Author's presentation copy, inscribed simply on the front endpaper to her close friend, "Ottoline Morrell Virginia Woolf". Morrell's notes referencing certain passages to the rear endpaper. A very good copy indeed with a trace of wear to the spine ends.
An exceptional association copy. Ottoline Morrell, who became the most prominent literary hostess of her generation, first met Woolf (Virginia Stephen at the time) in 1908 and formed an immediate impression, Woolf noting in a letter to Violet Dickinson that her meeting was like "sitting under a huge lily, absorbing pollen like a seduced bee".
After the war, Morrell's country house, Garsington Manor became a meeting point of bohemian writers and artists, particularly members of the Bloomsbury group. Woolf had spent time at Garsington during the war and remained a regular visitor, but as Woolf's standing as an author grew their relationship became more ambiguous. Morrell recalls in her memoirs,
"She seemed to feel certain of her own eminence. It is true, but it is rather crushing, for I feel she is very contemptuous of other people. When I stretched out a hand to feel another woman, I found only a very lovely, clear intellect."
The character of Clarissa Dalloway, the society hostess with her preoccupied politician husband, is likely to be based to an extent on Ottoline Morrell.
Stock ID: 35954
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