"Street Music," contained in THE NATIONAL REVIEW. №. 205 March 1905.
London: L. J. Maxse, 1905.
Folio. Printed wrappers. vii,192,ix-xii pp. Cracking and losses to spine with a one-inch square loss to rear panel near upper spine; bookplate of Hogarth Press and all things Bloomsbury-related collector, William Beekman affixed to verso of upper wrapper, else very good. Rare.
There has been little critical attention to the representation of rhythm in Woolf's early fiction, even though it was in this period that Woolf published THE VOYAGE OUT (1915) wherein the text refers repeatedly to different types, effects, and use of rhythm. Rhythm underlies much of the process Woolf employed to tease out her writing given that she often walked as she mentally composed, taking in the sounds and rhythms of the city streets or countryside as fuel for inspired dialogue. "Street Music" (144-8pp.) is similarly inspired and complex, asserting the affinity between musical and literary rhythm while also highlighting the snobbish response the class-conscious English of this period had to music encountered outside of established musical forums.
Additionally, the owner and editor of the National Review, Leopold James Maxse was the husband of Kitty Maxse. Katherine Lushington Maxse was a close friend to Woolf's mother Julia Stephen and took her children under her wing in the aftermath of her early death. Woolf did not like her, Vanessa did and became very close to her. In a letter to her sister Vanessa Bell, dated Monday [10 August 1908] Woolf, in reference to the novel she was working on that became THE VOYAGE OUT, tells her sister: "Lettice (an earlier name for Clarissa Dalloway, who first appears in TVO) is almost Kitty (Maxse) verbatim; what would happen if she guessed? Never was there such an improvident author -- Flaubert would turn in his grave." -- Nicolson, 349.
KIRKPATRICK C3.
Price: $225.00