Virginia Woolf was thirty-four when she met Katherine Mansfield. She was older than Katherine by seven years, and firmly part of the literary establishment, yet she felt less secure about her ability as a writer and was fearful of being surpassed. Despite a fierce desire to write since childhood, Virginia’s path to that goal was… Read more »
Courtship in Cornwall In March 1870 Thomas Hardy came to St Juliot in north-west Cornwall as a 30-year-old trainee architect, with instructions to measure and survey a dilapidated 14th century church needing restoration. He was greeted at the rectory by Emma Gifford, who was living there with her sister Helen and her brother-in-law, the Rector… Read more »