All the Lives We Ever Lived
Page 25
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
During the long years that I’ve been working on this project, I have relied upon the knowledge, expertise, and encouragement of a great many people, and I’m thrilled to have a chance to acknowledge them here.
First and foremost, I would like to thank my editor, Claire Potter, for her wisdom, thoughtfulness, boundless energy, and almost preternatural understanding of what I was hoping to achieve; I feel so lucky to have an editor who not only shares my vision but also enlarges it. This book is richer, smarter, and more luminous because of you.
I am equally indebted to my agent, Anna Stein, for her unbelievable advocacy and support. Thank you, Anna, for your unrelenting faith in the work, your compassion, and for always taking the long view.
Thank you, too, to the terrific team at Crown, including Julia Bradshaw, Eliana Seochand, Amelia Zalcman, and Michele Park, to Nicole Dewey, and to Lisa Dowdeswell at the Society of Authors, Ron Hussey at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Alicia Ofori at Penguin Random House UK for helping me to navigate the labyrinthine world of Virginia Woolf permissions.
This portrait of my father would have been impossible without the recollections and insights of the friends and family members who knew him best. Whether they sat for interviews or sent long letters, their contributions have been vital to helping me see Geoffrey Smyth as he must have been—not to me but to the world at large. My deepest gratitude to Michael Ben-Eli, Grenville Byford, Zette Emmons, Michael Fletcher, Vivien Fowler, Adam Klein, Trevor Murch, Peter Murray, Denise Silber, Stephen Smith, and William de Winton; to my uncles, Andrew Smyth and Robert Smyth; and to my grandmother, Betty Smyth.
Over the course of this project I have also turned to countless friends for their assistance, editorial and otherwise. In particular, I would like to thank Jon Baskin, Damaris Colhoun, Alex MacCallum, Sean Quinn, Sarah Ramey, Beth Raymer, and Jessa Sherman. I feel honored to think of the time and effort you have each dedicated to making this a better book; you are the most formidable of readers and friends.
Finally, I am grateful to my mother, Minty Smyth, for more than I can possibly enumerate here. Thank you for your limitless encouragement and acceptance, and for the tolerance and grace you have shown in sharing your past not only with your daughter but her readers.
CREDITS
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company: Excerpt of “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown” from The Captain’s Death Bed and Other Essays by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1950 and renewed 1978 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company · Excerpts from The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volumes 1–5, edited by Anne Olivier Bell. Diary copyright © 1977, 1978, 1980, 1982, 1984 by Quentin Bell and Angelica Garnett · Excerpts from “A Haunted House” from A Haunted House and Other Stories by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1944 and renewed 1972 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company · Excerpts of “Sir Thomas Browne” and “Appendix III” from The Essays of Virginia Woolf, Volumes 1–5, edited by Andrew McNeillie. Text copyright © 1986, 1987, 1989, 1994, 2009 by Quentin Bell and Angelica Garnett · Excerpt of “The Narrow Bridge of Art” from Granite and Rainbow: Essays by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1958 by Leonard Woolf · Excerpts from The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Volumes 1–3. Letters copyright © 1975, 1976, 1977 by Quentin Bell and Angelica Garnett · Excerpts from “Hyde Park Gate,” “Reminiscences,” and “A Sketch of the Past” from Moments of Being by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1976 by Quentin Bell and Angelica Garnett · Excerpt from Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1925 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company and renewed 1953 by Leonard Woolf · Excerpts from A Passionate Apprentice: The Early Journals of Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1990 by Quentin Bell and Angelica Garnett · Excerpt from A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1929 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company and renewed 1957 by Leonard Woolf · Excerpt from “How Should One Read a Book” from The Second Common Reader by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1932 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company and renewed 1960 by Leonard Woolf · Excerpts from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1927 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company and renewed 1954 by Leonard Woolf · Excerpts from The Waves by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1931 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company and renewed 1959 by Leonard Woolf. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
The Random House Group Limited: Excerpts from A Change of Perspective: The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Volume III 1923–1928 by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1977, published by Chatto & Windus Ltd. · Excerpts from The Diary of Virginia Woolf: Volume II 1920–1924 by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1980, published by The Hogarth Press · Excerpts from The Diary of Virginia Woolf: Volume III 1925–1930 by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1980, published by The Hogarth Press · Excerpts from The Diary of Virginia Woolf: Volume IV 1931–1935 by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1982, published by The Hogarth Press · Excerpt from The Diary of Virginia Woolf: Volume V 1936–1941 by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1988, published by The Hogarth Press · Excerpt from The Essays of Virginia Woolf: Volume I 1904–1912 by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1986, published by The Hogarth Press · Excerpt from The Essays of Virginia Woolf: Volume III 1919–1924 by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1988, published by The Hogarth Press · Excerpt from The Flight of the Mind: The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Volume I 1888–1912 by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1975, published by The Hogarth Press · Excerpt from Granite and Rainbow by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1958, published by The Hogarth Press Ltd. · Excerpts from Moments of Being by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1976 and 1985, published by The Hogarth Press · Excerpts from A Passionate Apprentice: The Early Journals 1897–1909 by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1990, published by The Hogarth Press · Excerpts from The Question of Things Happening: The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Volume II 1912-1922 by Virginia Woolf, copyright © 1976, published by Chatto & Windus Ltd. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited.
I am grateful to the Society of Authors as the literary representative of the Estate of Virginia Woolf for permission to quote from Hyde Park Gate News, Notes for Writing: Holograph Notebook, and On Being Ill; for granting U.S. electronic rights to The Captain’s Death Bed and Other Essays, The Diary of Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House and Other Stories, The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Granite and Rainbow, Mrs. Dalloway, A Room of One’s Own, The Second Common Reader, To the Lighthouse, and The Waves; for granting U.K. and Commonwealth electronic rights to The Diary of Virginia Woolf and The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Volume VI 1936–1941; and for permission to reproduce Woolf’s sketch of her novel’s anticipated structure. Thank you, too, to the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature at the New York Public Library for providing me with an image of that sketch, part of its Virginia Woolf Collection of Papers.
I am grateful as well to the University of Sussex and the Society of Authors as the literary representative of the Estate of Leonard Woolf for permission to quote from Leonard Woolf’s letters and autobiographies.
I would also like to thank the Society of Authors as the literary representative of the Estate of Leslie Stephen for permission to quote from Sir Leslie Stephen’s Mausoleum Book; and as the literary representative of the Estate of Lytton Strachey for permission to quote from Strachey’s letters, many of which were published for the first time in Michael Holroyd’s definitive biography.
I am grateful to Henrietta Garnett as the literary representative of the Estate of Vanessa Bell for permission to quote from Bell’s letters and essays; and as the literary representative of the Estate of Angelica Garnett for permission to quote from Garnett’s letters.
Finally, I am grateful to Barbara Karnes for permission to quote from her book Gone from My Sight: The Dying Experience.
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