PLEASE NOTE: Online events appear in purple type.
Find us on social media
Facebook: @VWSGB
Twitter: @VirginiaWoolfGB
Instagram: @virginiawoolfsociety
Society events (members only)
Online event recordings
The VWSGB holds regular live online events, which are recorded and loaded to the Society’s YouTube channel. Members can access recordings to May 2022 using the password supplied to them. (From July 2022 only ticket holders have access to the event recording.)
Recordings of online events to May 2022
Email onlinevwsgb@gmail.com for further information and queries.
Winterval Bloomsbury
Wednesday 4 December 2024, 5.30pm (online)
Join other members of the VWSGB for a pre-Christmas celebration of Bloomsbury. Members will read out their favourite passages written by Bloomsberries about winter and Christmas.
Email membershipvwsgb@gmail.com to join the Society, or onlinevwsgb@gmail.com for further information and queries about this online event.
Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury Reading Group
Friday 6 December 2024, 5.30pm (online)
The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield (1922)
We are pleased to offer this reading group for VWSGB members who want to talk about the works of Virginia Woolf and some of her Bloomsbury friends and contemporaries, to find connections, influences and similarities between them. The meetings will be a mixture of online and face-to-face discussions. Come prepared to tell us about your experience of reading the work, whether it’s your first or your hundredth time! What themes or motifs did you notice? Did anything surprise, delight, perplex or anger you? What do you think are the best parts, and why?
Email membershipvwsgb@gmail.com to join the Society, or onlinevwsgb@gmail.com for further information and queries about the Reading Group.
Society events open to non-members
Double Vision: Woolf’s Reading of Hardy and Meredith Through Leslie Stephen’s Eyes
Saturday 25 January 2025, 2pm
Claudia Jones Room, Camden Town Hall, 5 Judd Street, London WC1H 9JE
This is the twenty-fourth Annual Birthday Lecture of the VWSGB, and will be delivered by Eleanor McNees, Professor Emerita, University of Denver.
Virginia Woolf faced a singularly difficult challenge when she tackled George Meredith’s and Thomas Hardy’s works, in order, as she often says, to sum them up. Leslie Stephen serialised both novelists’ work in Cornhill Magazine during his tenure as editor (1871–1882), and he was intimately acquainted with Meredith and served as a crucial mentor to Hardy. Woolf had her father’s personal correspondence with Meredith and Hardy, letters that revealed much about Leslie Stephen. And, significantly, there were Meredith’s barely disguised representation of Leslie Stephen as a major character in The Egoist (1879) and Hardy’s sonnet, ‘The Shreckhorn’, dedicated to Stephen. Woolf’s careful reading and rereading of Meredith and Hardy, then, was perhaps her way of transmuting Leslie Stephen’s personal relationships with them into a detached, critical perspective.
Eleanor McNees taught Victorian and Modern British literature for thirty-five years. She is the author of books and essays on Virginia Woolf, Leslie Stephen, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Matthew Arnold and Charles Dickens. She has edited Woolf’s penultimate novel, The Years (Harcourt) and hosted the International Virginia Woolf Conference at the University of Denver in 2008. She presented a paper at the first-ever Leslie Stephen Conference in Paris in October 2024, and is currently completing a book on Virginia Woolf and the Victorians.
The lecture will be followed by a birthday cake and wine/soft drink reception. Attendees will receive a printed copy of the lecture.
Cost: £25 VWSGB members, £30 non-members: contact Mr Lindsay Martin at eventsvwsgb@gmail.com
Tickets will not be issued; attendee names will be on a registration list at the lecture.
Other events
Woolf and Politics (Literature Cambridge)
Monthly to June 2025, 6–8pm British time
Join us for unique seasons of lectures and seminars on the major works of Virginia Woolf. Each session has a live online lecture and seminar via Zoom.
Saturday 7 December 2024. Ellie Mitchell on Woolf’s War Diary
Saturday 11 January 2025. Danell Jones on A Room of One’s Own (1929) and Black Britain
Saturday 8 February 2025. Natasha Periyan on Education in The Years (1936)
Saturday 8 March 2025. Trudi Tate on Mrs Dalloway (1925) and the Vote
Saturday 12 April 2025. Varsha Panjwani on The Politics of Orlando (1928)
Saturday 10 May 2025. Angela Harris on The Politics of Jacob’s Room (1922)
Saturday 14 June 2025. Claire Davison on Body Politics and Clothing in Three Guineas (1938)
Fees: £32 per session (£27 VWSGB members and other concessions)
Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour
Saturday 19 October 2024–Sunday 23 February 2025
MK Gallery, 900 Midsummer Boulevard, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire MK9 3QA
Vanessa Bell (née Stephen; 1879–1961) was a key figure in twentieth-century British art and played a central role in the Bloomsbury group. This exhibition at MK Gallery – the largest-ever solo show of Bell’s work – will provide an overview spanning the artist’s illustrious career, from the Friday Club to Omega Workshops. The exhibition will include all aspects of her practice across fine and applied art. Alongside a significant, carefully selected display of over 70 paintings will be drawings, furniture, ceramics and designs; in all, more than 120 items. Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour is organised by MK Gallery in partnership with Charleston. The exhibition is generously supported by the Jerwood Foundation.
Standard ticket price: £11.50 (book online)
Note: This exhibition transfers to Lewes late March 2025; see below.
Dora Carrington: Beyond Bloomsbury
Saturday 9 November 2024–Sunday 27 April 2025
Pallant House Gallery, 8–9 North Pallant, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 1TJ
This will be the first museum exhibition of works by Dora Carrington (1893–1932) in almost 30 years. The Barbican Art Gallery held the last major exhibition of her work in 1995 and in the same year Emma Thompson starred as the free-spirited painter in the film Carrington. Co-curated by Anne Chisholm, editor of Carrington’s Letters (2017), and writer and critic Ariane Bankes, the exhibition will reveal the continued relevance of Carrington’s unconventional life and remarkable work.
As a significant contributor to Modern British art during the interwar years and an associate of the Bloomsbury Group, Carrington was described as ‘the most neglected serious painter of her time’ by former Tate Director Sir John Rothenstein. This exhibition aims to reposition Carrington in the history of Modern British art. Spanning paintings, drawings and prints from across her career, the exhibition will include film and photographs from private and public collections. It will form a powerful portrait of Carrington, exploring her defiance of gender norms and her circle of eminent friends. Taken together, her artworks, many made for her friends, capture a Bohemian way of life: loving, creative, domestic and intimate.
For more information and bookings, see the website
Vanessa Bell: Portraits by Duncan Grant
Saturday 16 November 2024–Sunday 23 February 2025
Charleston, Firle, Lewes, East Sussex BN8 6LL
Open Wednesday–Sunday/Bank Holiday Monday, 10am–5pm
To coincide with Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour at MK Gallery, we’re displaying ten significant portraits of Vanessa Bell by her close friend and fellow artist Duncan Grant inside the house at Charleston in Firle. These rarely seen works, loaned from private collections and newly discovered in our archives, will be shown alongside our world-leading collection of paintings, furniture and objects. Admission is included with the purchase of a house ticket.
For more about Charleston, see below.
Virginia Woolf Winter Walk: ‘Oxford Street Tide’ – from Oxford Street to Bloomsbury
Saturday 25 January 2025, 10am–12pm
Hanover Square to Tavistock Square (map and details will be sent on sign up)
NB This walk has been arranged to fit in with the VWSGB 2025 Annual Birthday Lecture (see above for details).
Join educator and writer Liz Ison on a winter walk to mark Virginia Woolf’s birthday, and to celebrate the publication of Louisa Albani’s pamphlet Virginia Woolf in the City: Oxford Street Tide (Night Bird Press, 2025). The walk is inspired by Louisa’s pamphlet, which is in turn a reimagining of Woolf’s essay ‘Oxford Street Tide’. Liz will lead participants on a walk through the bustling area around Oxford Street to the quieter Bloomsbury streets, ending in Tavistock Square Gardens. We will go in search of the London streets and places that served as literary inspiration for Virginia Woolf as well as the shops that she liked to frequent when she was in need of a new hat or pair of gloves, or some books to read.
‘The garishness and gaudiness of the great rolling ribbon of Oxford Street has its fascination. It is like the pebbly bed of a river whose stones are forever washed by a bright stream. Everything glitters and twinkles.’ (From Virginia Woolf’s ‘Oxford Street Tide’)
Tickets £30. Includes signed copy of the pamphlet Virginia Woolf in the City (normal cost £17.50 incl. postage). Book through Night Bird Press website, adding promo code VWWW2025 at checkout. Pamphlets will given out at the end of the walk. For further information, email: louisa.albani@gmail.com or see the Night Bird Press website.
Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour
26 March–30 September 2025, Wednesday–Sunday/Bank Holiday Monday, 10am–5pm
Charleston in Lewes, Southover Road, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1FB
Vanessa Bell (née Stephen; 1879–1961) was a key figure in twentieth-century British art and played a central role in the Bloomsbury group. This exhibition – the largest-ever solo show of Bell’s work – will provide an overview spanning the artist’s illustrious career, from the Friday Club to Omega Workshops. The exhibition will include all aspects of her practice across fine and applied art. Alongside a significant, carefully selected display of over 70 paintings will be drawings, furniture, ceramics and designs; in all, more than 120 items. Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour is organised by Charleston in partnership with MK Gallery.
See the website for further information and for ticket prices.
Woolf and Dissidence: 34th Annual Virginia Woolf Conference
Friday 4 July 2025, King’s College London
Pre-conference event: visit to the King’s Archives and a panel discussion on ‘Virginia Woolf: Creative Engagements’ with contemporary writers and artists speaking about their multi-media engagements with Woolf’s writing.
Saturday 5–Tuesday 8 July 2025, University of Sussex, UK
Details to follow about keynote speakers, performances, workshops and other featured events but a highlight will be the conference dinner and house tour at Charleston, Sussex.
Virginia Woolf practised a politics of dissent. From her pacifism, deeply held through two world wars, to her feminism, Woolf continually wrote back to power. She urged transgression and trespass and ‘thinking against the current’ (‘Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid’). Dissent takes many forms in her oeuvre from the overt politics of her major essays to her novelistic defamiliarising of patriarchal, capitalist, imperialist society. Narratologically, too, her writing swerves and undercuts: its experimentation a form of dissident aesthetics.
The organisers of the 34th Annual Virginia Woolf Conference invite paper, panel, workshop and exhibitions proposals that engage with the theme of ‘Woolf and Dissidence’. We seek to foster conversations about the nature and contexts of Woolf’s dissidence or that of her predecessors, contemporaries and inheritors. What are the limitations of her politics? In what ways did she conform? In the centenary year of the publication of Mrs Dalloway it is fitting that the 34th Annual Virginia Woolf Conference returns to the UK and to two locations with strong Woolfian connections: King’s College London, where Woolf studied as a teenager, and Sussex, home to Monks House and Charleston. Our theme also honours the history of the Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence, founded by Alan Sinfield and Jonathan Dollimore, at the University of Sussex. The Centre’s pioneering work in sexuality and queer studies provides a fitting context for the Woolf conference.
Organised by Helen Tyson (University of Sussex), with Clara Jones and Anna Snaith (King’s College London). See call for papers on the conference website (deadline 13 December 2024).
Virginia Woolf: Writing Life (Literature Cambridge)
Thursday 10–Monday 14 July 2025
This is the online version of the summer course with Literature Cambridge, consisting of five days (c.3.5 hours per day) of intensive study with lectures, tutorials, talks, discussions and more. Set reading: Mrs Dalloway (1925); To the Lighthouse (1927); Orlando (1928); The Waves (1931); Flush (1933); selected essays on biography. The course can accommodate participants in different time zones through a mixture of live online and pre-recorded material. To get a sense of how it works, please see the blog posts on Literature Cambridge’s website.
Course fees
£590 Full price
£550 VWSGB members
£550 CAMcard holders
£540 Students on a low income
For further information and to book, see the website or email info@literaturecambridge.co.uk
Virginia Woolf: Writing Life (Literature Cambridge)
Sunday 20–Friday 25 July 2025
Clare Hall, Herschel Road, Cambridge CB3 9AL (for classes)
Residence: Robinson College, Cambridge, or residence of your own choosing
This is the in-person version of the summer course with Literature Cambridge, consisting of five days of intensive study in Cambridge, with lectures, tutorials, talks, visits and more. Arrive in Cambridge Sunday afternoon 20 July; depart Saturday morning 26 July 2025. Set reading: Mrs Dalloway (1925); To the Lighthouse (1927); Orlando (1928); The Waves (1931); Flush (1933); selected essays on biography.
Course fees
£1,300 Full price
£1,200 VWSGB members
£1,200 CAMcard holders
£1,150 Students on a low income
For further information and to book, see the website or email info@literaturecambridge.co.uk
Monks House
Rodmell, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 3HF
Monks House is closed until March 2025, after which visits must be pre-booked (includes National Trust members).
Explore the country retreat of the novelist Virginia Woolf, where she wrote many of most celebrated novels. Leonard and Virginia’s personalities saturate the house and it should feel as if they have just stepped out for a walk. You can explore the house at your own speed and there are room guides on hand to help you to bring the house alive. The beautiful English country garden was designed by Leonard Woolf and has incredible views of the Sussex Downs. Virginia Woolf was greatly influenced by the garden wrote many of her major works in her writing lodge. Her short story ‘The Orchard’ was inspired by the garden. With the tranquility of the Sussex Downs through the window and the garden surrounding her, it was the perfect place to write.
Facilities
There is a small shop selling guidebooks, postcards and some second-hand books. Outdoor privy located in the garden. Dogs are permitted in the garden on a lead, but there are no dog bins at the property. There is a small parking area for cars and bicycles nearby, and the Abergavenny Arms in Rodmell serves tea, coffee and cake when Monks House is open.
Tickets £9.50/£10.50 adult, £4.75/£5.30 child (National Trust members free), on sale every Thursday for bookings for the following four weeks.
For more information, see the Monks House website
Volunteer guides
Would you like to be a volunteer guide at Monks House? Meet other Woolf enthusiasts and work, surrounded by Bloomsbury treasures, in the house where Virginia and Leonard Woolf lived for so many years. Training will be provided. Read more about volunteering for us. If you’re interested, please phone 01273 474760 or email monkshouse@nationaltrust.org.uk
Charleston
Charleston, Firle, Lewes, East Sussex BN8 6LL
Open Wednesday–Sunday/Bank Holiday Monday, 10am–5pm
Visit Charleston to explore the art and lives of artists Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and their contemporaries. Almost as soon as they moved to Charleston in 1916, Bell and Grant began to paint. Not just the walls, but on every surface imaginable, transforming the house into a living, breathing work of art. Over the following decades, Charleston became a gathering point for some of the twentieth century’s most radical artists, writers and thinkers known collectively as the Bloomsbury group. It is where they lived out their progressive social and artistic ideals. Today, it continues to be a place that brings people together to engage with art and ideas.
A visitor assistant will accompany you around the house as you explore the individually designed and hand-painted rooms. Entry to the galleries and the house is by timed ticket and pre-booking is recommended. The shop, café and garden are available to visit without purchasing a ticket. To book, see the website and for events, see the What’s On page. You can shop online at the Charleston shop web page.
Tickets £22.50 (concessions available; Friends of Charleston free)
Promoting your event
We would be happy to feature your Virginia Woolf event on this page and on social media (Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram): please email the following to onlinevwsgb@gmail.com.
For website
Title of event
Day / date / time
Full address & postcode
Brief description
Ticket price and how to book
Contact email / phone no.
Web address for more info
–Events are listed in date order and will be deleted when expired, so please make sure all the relevant details appear for each event separately.
For Facebook, as above, plus at least one image. For X/Twitter, please provide a short post no longer than 280 characters (including spaces), and for Instagram, a 100-word paragraph plus image. Please make sure that these include the date of your event and contact details.
Payment (VWSGB events only)
First, book your place at the event by emailing eventsvwsgb@gmail.com
Next, pay for the event by online banking, PayPal, credit/debit card or cheque (sterling only).
1) For online payments, please use the following details.
Bank: Santander
Account Name: Virginia Woolf Society GB
Account No.: 40411044
Sort Code: 09 06 66
2) If you wish to pay by PayPal, please email for details. You may need to add a little extra to cover costs.
3) If you wish to pay by credit/debit card, you can email for a PayPal invoice. You will then be able to pay by Visa/Visa Debit/Visa Electron, Mastercard, Discover, UnionPay, Maestro or American Express.
4) Make out a cheque to ‘Virginia Woolf Society’ and email for details.
Reference: for all payment types, please indicate the event plus your surname (e.g. AGM22 SMITH), so that we can match up the payment with the contact details provided.