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Reviewing … with a Note by Leonard Woolf.

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First edition of Woolf’s satirical take on the art of reviewing, as opposed to that of literary criticism.

By replacing lengthy reviews with discussion, Woolf concludes, ‘the writer would gain in range, in depth, in power. And this change would tell eventually upon the public mind. Their favourite figure of fun, the author, that hybrid between the peacock and the ape, would be removed from their derision, and in his place would be an obscure workman doing his job in the darkness of the workshop and not unworthy of respect … A new interest in literature, a new respect for literature might follow’ (pp. 25–6). A mitigating postscript by Leonard at the end injects practical remarks on the commercial usefulness of reviews, where Woolf’s uncompromising disdain would just describe reviewers as ‘a distracted tag on the tail of the political kite’ and express the artist’s yearning for the fertile obscurity of one’s workshop.

Kirkpatrick A24a; Woolmer 463.