Virginia Woolf: A Botanical Perspective

The East Bay Smith Club welcomes Madelaine Zadik, Manager of Education and Outreach at the Smith College Botanical Garden on June 9 for Virginia Woolf: A Botanical Perspective. For location, and to RSVP, please see the Evite.

Madelaine's reading recommendations:

1) Short story Kew Gardens -- While the story is available online, I would love it if everyone would read the version in PDF "VW Botanical Perspective.pdf" (see below). This is a copy of the 3rd edition of the story, published in 1927 and includes illustrations by Woolf's sister Vanessa Bell. These really change the experience of reading the story and will help place everyone in the Bloomsbury frame of mind. In the same PDF are images of the first edition, as well as short botanical excerpts from other works that I thought everyone might enjoy.

2) The second attached PDF is writings by Smith students who took ENG 299, Green Victoria, taught by Cornelia Pearsall, part of the Botanic Garden's Curricular Enhancement Program. In one of their assignments, students were asked to visit the Lyman Conservatory and observe the interaction of people among plants (some of this was during our Spring Bulb Show). The students read Kew Gardens, and wrote about their observations in a similar manner. I thought everyone would enjoy these writings and perhaps be inspired to create similar writings that they might be willing to share with the group.

3) For those who want to do additional readings, I suggest the collection of stories in which Kew Gardens was also reprinted in 1921: Monday or Tuesday. The full text of that collection is available online at a variety of websites (people can choose which version is easiest for them to read: http://www.bartleby.com/85, http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91m, http://books.google.com) . I'm not sure that there is a current print edition that is still in print, although I'm sure it is in libraries and it is probably pretty easy to find a used copy. A quick look at abebooks.com revealed many copies available at $1 - $5.