Overview

Virginia Woolf and Capitalism explores Woolf's engagement with and critiques of capitalism throughout her life, arguing for its central importance in our understanding of her as an author, activist and publisher. Galvanised by existing scholarship on the place of economics, class, gender and empire in Woolf's writing, this collection draws attention to her thinking about history, labour and economics and gives space for understandings of Woolf in the context of our own late-capitalist moment. Chapters by leading and emerging scholars range across Woolf's oeuvre in all its generic diversity, from her earliest short fiction and Night and Day to Three Guineas and Between the Acts, showcasing a range of critical approaches from the archival to the creative to the pedagogical. This collection demonstrates how productive and provocative thinking about Woolf's fiction and non-fiction through the lens of capitalism can be for Woolf scholars.

Full Product Details

Author:   Clara Jones (Senior Lecturer in Modern Literature, King's College London)
Publisher:   Edinburgh University Press
Imprint:   Edinburgh University Press
ISBN:  

9781399514095

ISBN 10:   1399514091
Pages:   336
Publication Date:   31 January 2026
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available, will be POD  
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon it's release. This is a print on demand item which is still yet to be released.
Language:   English

Table of Contents

List of Figures Acknowledgements Series Preface Abbreviations Notes on Contributors Woolf and Capitalism: Introduction, Clara Jones PART I: CLASS, EMPIRE, CAPITAL 1. ‘The eagle claws other peoples land, & goods’: Virginia Woolf on the desire to dominate, Michèle Barrett 2. Empire, Slavery and Capitalism, Anna Snaith 3. ‘my comfortable capitalistic head’: Virginia Woolf on Consumption, Co-operation and Motherhood, Charlotte Taylor Suppé 4. Biometric Feminism: A Room of One’s Own and The Politics of Intelligence, Natasha Periyan 5. ‘Merchant of this city’: Capitalism and the Liturgies of Peace and War in Jacob’s Room, Charles Andrews PART II: LABOUR AND THE MARKETPLACE 6. Between the Houses: Woolf and the Property Market, Rachel Bowlby 7. Publishing and Capitalism at the Hogarth Press, Nicola Wilson 8. ‘It’s rather distinguished to be as ordinary as I am.’ Woolf’s Working Women Writers, Bryony Randall 9. The Literary Public Sphere in Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day, Stanislava Dikova 10. Capitalism and Woolf’s Beyond-Work, Evelyn Chan 11. Virginia Woolf: A Sound Investment, Brenda R. Silver CODA: CRITICAL/CREATIVE APPROACHES 12. Scrapbooking the Present Day: The Three Guineas Scrapbooks, Helen Tyson 13. Work Cut Out, Kabe Wilson Index

Reviews

Virginia Woolf and Capitalism successfully produces new resonances even in old readers by making them attuned to aspects of Woolf’s words that risked being neglected or positively obscured. Rich in detail and nuanced in its analysis, this collection of essays is already part of the compulsory reading on Woolf for scholars, students, and common readers alike. -- Luca Pinelli * Synergies: A Journal of English Literatures and Cultures * As part of Edinburgh University Press’s new “Virginia Woolf—Variations” series, edited by Derek Ryan, Virginia Woolf and Capitalism continues the work of looking beyond Woolf’s celebrated contributions to feminism and aestheticism, leaning instead towards critiquing her relationship with other, equally crucial, aspects of early twentieth-century and interwar life. Woolf continues to occupy an ambivalent space in discussions of class and capitalism. [...] Virginia Woolf and Capitalism consequently proves an important, timely, and original contribution not only to the fields of new modernist and working-class studies, but also to our understandings of Woolf’s place within (and perceptions of) various capitalist modes of production—both during her lifetime and in her afterlives. -- John D. Attridge, Regent College London * The Space Between: Literature and Culture 1914-1945 * This anthology provides a dynamic and fresh perspective on both the legacy and the limits of Woolf’s feminist call to action. Summing Up: Highly recommended. -- V. A. Murrenus Pilmaier, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay * CHOICE * The time is ripe for this exciting collection on Virginia Woolf's economic thinking. Clara Jones has assembled an impressive set of scholars to explore Woolf's efforts, powerful but partial, to critique capitalism from within. Virginia Woolf and Capitalism is at once a resource and a rallying cry. -- Anne Fernald, Fordham University

Author Information

Clara Jones is Senior Lecturer in Modern Literature at King’s College London. She is the author of Virginia Woolf: Ambivalent Activist (2016) and is currently at work on a new book on the politics of interwar women writers and activists, including Rosamond Lehmann, Ellen Wilkinson, Elizbeth Bowen, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Amabel Williams-Ellis.

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