Two Pacifists: Vera Brittain and Virginia Woolf.

Two previously unpublished letters from Virginia Woolf to Vera Brittain and a little-known memorial essay by Brittain published in 1941 in her subscriptiononly series, Letters to Peace Lovers, form the occasion for this reconsideration of Woolf's connection to Brittain. Appendices reprint these documents. Brittain cherished her several contacts with Woolf and framed her memorial essay on the moments when their lives touched. More surprisingly, and despite Woolf's many aesthetic differences from Brittain, she learned much from Brittain, and cited her column (without naming her) in an early draft of "Professions for Women," a citation that persists in a footnote in Three Guineas. Tracing Brittain's acquaintance with Woolf as she outlined it: hearing talk about her from the suffragist pacifist Helena Maria Swanwick, joining her in support of Radclyffe Hall, citing her experiences at Somerville in a speech, and finally, soliciting her support on behalf of the Austrian antifascist Paula Wallisch, these documents reveal a surprising feminist connection. This connection, while minor, illuminates the unappreciated web of feminist activism and surprising connections across cultural barriers. Finally, both women's continued pacifism during World War II subjected them to ridicule and reputational damage which Brittain documents and empathizes within her essay. In Woolf's relationship to Holtby and Brittain, we see the truth of Woolf's insistence that "masterpieces are not single and solitary births": theirs is an example of the powerful proximity and mutual dependence of great writers on good ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]