Virginia Woolf's Second Visit to Greece

Abstract

The visit Virginia Woolf made to Greece with Leonard Woolf, Roger Fry, and Margery Fry in April-May 1932 was the one happy time in an unhappy year for her. This new study of it, by a classical scholar with a keen interest in women writers of twentieth-century English fiction, is based on close examination of the primary sources, published and unpublished. Those sources are Virginia's diary and letters, Roger's letters, Leonard's pocket diary, and Virginia's and Leonard's photographs. The article is in five sections. Section 1 is introductory, explaining the background to the holiday and discussing the relations between the members of the party, especially Virginia and Roger. Section 2 sets out the exact itinerary and timetable. Section 3 deals with the Woolfs' photographs. Many of the scenes are correctly identified for the first time. Sections 4 and 5 concern the accounts in Virginia's diary and letters respectively and correct mistakes in the published versions of them. Some of the mistakes are significant. The most damaging one occurs when the editors of her diary, misreading her handwriting, make her call Roger “infinitely serious”. He was not that, but he was, in Virginia's estimation, “infinitely porous”.