Not much above the diaries but plenty of pictures of Virginia and family and collegues ( )

I'd give the pictures (which are a huge part of the book) five stars, but the text itself is pretty slight and doesn't give you a very cohesive look at Woolf's life. The author is obviously well-informed and has written several books on Bloomsbury folks, but here that translates into asides and shortcuts that give Woolf and her writing the short end of the stick. She also has some odd turns of phrase, particularly when describing mental illness and sexual abuse, that don't do the narrative any favors. The book itself is nicely printed with lots of space devoted to the often rare photographs of Woolf, her family, and her friends. Maybe just look at the pictures and enjoy the captions for this one, but go elsewhere for your Virginia Woolf insights. ( )

A trip over well trodden ground. What is the use of a book without pictures - said Alice. There are many good snapshots of the redoubtable group Bloomsbury.
No pictures of Clive Bell that I could find. A chronology. A bibliography, though a slim one. No index. I'm not ordinarily fond of books without an index.
It does include a note from V.W. From 8 March 1941, V.W. wrote this:

No I intend no introspection. I mark Henry James' sentence: Observe perpetually. Observe the oncome of age. Observe greed. Observe my own despondency. By that means it becomes serviceable. Or so I hope. I insist upon spending this time to the best advantege. I will go down with my colours flying. ( )

This book provides an excellent first introduction to the life of Virginia Woolf. It introduces in an accessible manner the rough outline of Woolf's life and the major events which have provided so much food for thought in other more extensive biographies (death of mother, sexual abuse, relation with Vita Sackville-West etc.). In only 136 pages Mary Ann Caws succeeds in painting a picture of Virginia Woolf as an artist who manages to turn the mental illness which always haunted her into a vehicle for artistic achievement (an achievement impressive and often overlooked because of her suicide). The biographer has a keen eye for selecting those quotations which shed a clear light on Woolf's personality and which speak most directly to us. It speaks for Caws that she refuses to end the biography with Woolf's suicide, but concludes with Woolf's own statement on her mission as an author: "Observe perpetually. Observe the oncome of age. Observe my own despondency. By that means it becomes serviceable. Or so I hope. I insist upon spending this time to the best advantage. I will go down with my colours flying."
On a final note, it is the photographs which truly make this book a wonderful acquisition, pictures of Virginia Woolf, her family, her friends, all those who circled in and around the Bloomsbury group. It is these photographs which allow us a very close look into Woolf's life. ( )