Virginia Woolf never attended a university. She educated herself by reading her father’s large, unexpurgated library, and by studying languages. Lessons in Greek, Latin, German, French, Italian, and Russian occupied her intermittently for most of her life. This manuscript book of notes and exercises in Italian is from the period of Woolf’s first attempt at the language. It begins with lesson XXXI and is probably the second of two notebooks. (Woolf’s earlier lesson book in Italian is in the British Library.) After her father’s death, Woolf visited Italy in 1904 for the first time, and thereafter took regular trips to the Continent.

George Beresford. Virginia Stephen: photograph (modern print), 1902. Presented by Blanche Cooney.

Virginia Woolf. Italian: autograph manuscript notebook, 7 June 1916. Purchased.

Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College

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