what nib produced this handwriting?

[Enai]

I so envy you being able to handle her actual letters! Lucky you!!

 

I'm a huge fan of Virginia Woolf's Letter and Diary collections! Reading Volume 5 of her diaries now, and I've found that often in her entries she mentions she is 'just writing this to test this pen'!

 

Apparently she was always on the look out for one she liked, but often not finding it! (Sounds familiar....) Complains a lot about the steel nibs scratching on the paper, etc. " ...more like writing with a PIN, rather than a pen."

 

And like the other post mentions she did write very fast! She says, "I only stop long enough to dip the pen in ink....." then continues writing at a very rapid pace.

 

Annika, can you give more information about the particular Virginia Woolf collection of letters and diaries that you mention? That is, publisher/editor and date of publication?

 

This is a very interesting thread. Thanks for resurrecting it.

[DAYoung]

Just to add one more little detail, Unnarrator...

 

In the biography itself, Lee adds that Woolf "didn't much like it" (p.654), this newfangled pen. Sadly, she doesn't say why. Perhaps it's in Woolf's diary for 1934 (I only have the 1915-19 volume).

 

(By the way, I'm quoting from the 1996 Chatto & Windus edition of Lee's biography.)

Edited October 10, 2009 by DAYoung

[reprieve]

I cannot believe I almost missed this thread entirely! Virginia Woolf is my very favorite writer. I too am a big fan of her diaries and letters, in addition to the novels, stories, and essays; in the diaries, Woolf habitually takes note of her pen and ink (and sometimes criticizes others' choices in pens and inks), her handwriting, as well as her location and state of mind while writing.

 

The Diary of Virginia Woolf is edited by Anne Olivier Bell, published by Harcourt Brace. There are five volumes, which span the greater part of Woolf's life--from 1915 to her death in 1941. I've read most of volumes one through four. I like to flag the passages about pens and inks, as well as other bits that I find particularly interesting. This is some of what I marked in the first volume.

 

 

From the Editor's Preface (by Anne Olivier Bell), p. ix in Volume 1: "Virginia Woolf wrote a distinguished and elegant hand which in general it is not difficult to read, though the speed at which she wrote, the instruments she used (for preference a dipping pen and ink), and her habitual position--seated in an easy chair with a board on her lap--do frequently give rise to irregularities and obscurities."

 

Volume 1, p. 102. Dated 8 January 1918: "How I went to a Registry Office for Nessa; & noticed that the woman had 6 or 7 pens on her table, tried one after another, found all save one unusable; nibs stuck to the holder with crusts of ink."

 

Volume 1, p. 192. Dated 10 September 1918: "I spent the first five minutes with this book before me trying to fish two drowned flies out of my ink pot on the tip of my pen; but I begin to see that this is one of those undertakings which are quite impossible--absolutely impossible. Not Darwin or Plato could do it with the tip of my pen. And now the flies are increasing & dissolving; today there are three."

 

Volume 1, p. 207. Dated 24 October 1918: "The degradation of steel pens is such that after doing my best to clip & file one into shape, I have to take to a Waterman [fountain pen], profoundly though I distrust them, & disbelieve in their capacity to convey the nobler & profounder thoughts."

 

Volume 1, p. 208. Dated 26 October 1918: "Here I am experimenting with the parent of all pens--the black J. the pen, as I used to think it, along with other objects, as a child, because mother used it; & therefore all other pens were varieties & eccentricities."

 

Volume 1, p. 214. Dated 4 November 1918: "Since I'm back from the Club & waiting for L. (who has gone to see Mr Hawkins of the Temple [unidentified]) I had better assuage my fretfulness with pen & ink. I have a pen of <malachite> vulcanite(?) which perhaps serves the purpose of a babies coral."

 

Volume 1, p. 250. Dated 7 March 1919: "Having smashed my ink pot, I have recourse to safety pots again & purple ink I see dwells in this one; but I can't use with any effect the muffled respectability of a fountain pen."

 

Volume 1, p. 292. Dated 19 July 1919: "One ought to say something about Peace Day, I suppose, though whether its worth taking a new nib for that purpose I don't know. I'm sitting wedged into the window, & so catch almost on my head the steady drip of rain which is pattering on the leaves."

[DAYoung]

Fascinating. Thank you, Reprieve.

 

I can't say Woolf is my very favourite writer, but she certainly takes up some serious bookshelf space next to Henry James and Edith Wharton.

[DAYoung]

This afternoon, I read this in V. Woolf's diary:

 

"I must say that coincident with the purchase of 52 Tavistock Sqre (how I like writing that!) is the purchase of a nine penny pen, a fountain pen, which has an ordinary nib, & writes--sometimes very well. Am I more excited about buying Tavistock Sqre, or buying my new fountain pen?" - Wednesday 9th January, 1924

 

(The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume 2: 1920-24, 1981, Penguin)

[wood]

If I had to guess what nib, I would say a Esterbrook Lady Falcon dip or similar. I write with it and an Esterbrook School firm/fine all the time with a similar style of handwritting. If I am careful, you can't tell it is a dip pen. Gall or lamp black inks produce shading within the individual letters. I make my own walnut hull ink just for this reason. I have no problems with snagging unless I am using paper with a textured finish. Just my opinion