![]() In all three books, Lee weaves masterly discussions of her subjects’ work into the stories of their lives.Īpart from her biographies, Lee has written book-length monographs on Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, and Philip Roth. The same is true of each of Lee’s biographies: Willa Cather (1989) is a hybrid of biography and literary essay Edith Wharton (2007) considers Wharton not only as an American author but as a European one, drawing on a wealth of social, psychological, material, and historical detail. The result was an original and sensitive account of a complex life. Instead of a fact-a name, a place, a birthday-she opened Virginia Woolf (1996) with a question that Woolf herself asked: “My God, how does one write a Biography?”Īlthough Lee did keep chronology in view, she approached her subject by theme, topic, and scene. “At that point, I thought, Clearly, people feel it’s the right time to have a new biography of Virginia Woolf, and clearly, more than one person thinks I should be the one to do it.” Lee wouldn’t, though, do it in a traditional, linear way. ![]() Then a second publisher suggested the same thing. ![]() “I thought it was ridiculous,” Lee recalls. ![]() ![]() The first time a publisher approached Hermione Lee with the idea of writing a biography of Virginia Woolf, she said no. Interviewed by Louisa Thomas Issue 205, Summer 2013 ![]()
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