Mrs. Woolf and the Servants
The sheer volume of secondary literature inspired by the life of Virginia Woolf is downright frightening.
There have been books about Woolf鈥檚 madness, her marriage, her siblings, her friendships, her loves, her homes, and the London in which she lived and moved.
And that doesn鈥檛 even begin to take into account the glut of biographies, letters, commentaries, and memoirs spun off her Bloomsbury companions.
So can a book like Alison Light鈥檚 Mrs. Woolf and the Servants: An Intimate History of Domestic Life in Bloomsbury possibly tell us anything new? Yes.
Light, a London academic and author, is not offering another biography. Her aim is a more surprising one. She wants to 鈥渞estore the servants to the story.鈥� In part, Light (whose grandmother worked as a domestic servant and recalled being 鈥渢reated like dirt鈥�) hopes to reclaim the 鈥渄ignity and the respect [servants] deserve.鈥�
But she is also fascinated by the degree to which Woolf, and her sister, painter Vanessa Bell, self-styled bohemians and free thinkers, lived in thrall to their domestic help.
鈥淲hy we have [servants] I can鈥檛 think,鈥� Woolf moaned to Bell via letter. 鈥淪ordid ... degrading ... a confounded bore,鈥� she confided to her diary of her relationship with Nellie, her servant for 18 years.
Yet neither Woolf nor Bell nor just about anyone else in the circles within which they moved could have coped without them. As Light demonstrates, for centuries the institution of domestic service was the foundation on which the British household was built.
It was also a vital chapter in the history of British women. From the mid-17th century up until at least 1945, Light writes, domestic service was the largest single female occupation.
And yet for all that the institution kept both Britain鈥檚 society and its economy humming, it imposed strange burdens on those who practiced it.
In a society heavily segregated by class, domestic service required servants and their masters to maintain a constant 鈥� and often uncomfortable 鈥� intimacy.
鈥淢y brains are becoming soft ... by constant contact with the lower classes,鈥� Bell complained to Woolf after a holiday during which she was forced to live on the same floor with her servants.
Life with the Woolfs turned Nellie into 鈥渁 mongrel鈥� with 鈥渘o roots any where,鈥� Woolf worried. 鈥淗ow can an uneducated woman let herself in, alone, into our lives?鈥�
Light traces the history of servants throughout Woolf鈥檚 life, starting with her girlhood under the care of Sophie Farrell, an exemplar of 鈥渢he faithful retainer鈥� who, even as a retiree, continued to yearn for the family she had once waited on.
Later, as a young married woman, Woolf employed Lottie Hope, an orphan raised by philanthropists to be a servant. (Work as a servant was considered a great good compared with the other options open to an abandoned child of the era.)
But the drama queen of the group was Nellie. Like Woolf, she lost her mother as a girl and, like Woolf, grew up complicated and needy. The two quarreled regularly and played out complex dramas for years before Woolf finally had the courage to terminate the relationship.
The truth is that Woolf and Bell and others in their set were fairly liberal, benevolent employers. Yet rarely if ever did they see their servants as beings with needs as valid as their own. (Woolf lived on 拢4,000 a year yet complained of the 鈥渕eanness鈥� of her servants who made do with the 拢40 she paid them annually.)
Light鈥檚 research is thorough and she does a good job of joining social history to Woolf鈥檚 particular story. 鈥淎fter centuries of domestic service in Britain,鈥� she writes, 鈥渨hat it meant to be a servant 鈥� and to have servants 鈥� is still a remarkably undiscovered country.鈥�
鈥淢rs. Woolf and her Servants鈥� makes a meaningful foray into that territory.
Marjorie Kehe is the Monitor鈥檚 book editor.
