Virginia Woolf's Influential Forebears reveals under-acknowledged nineteenth-century legacies which shaped Woolf as a writing woman. Marion Dell identifies significant lines of descent from the lives and works of Woolf's great-aunt Julia Margaret Cameron, the writer she called aunt, Anny Thackeray Ritchie, and her mother, Julia Prinsep Stephen.
"Virginia Woolf's ambivalent relationship with her Victorian forebears, particularly the women, is the topic of Marion Dell's even-handed and beautifully researched monograph. ? Perhaps the greatest value of Virginia Woolf's Influential Forebears is its close focus on where and how in Woolf's work the influence of these three women is both present and visible." (Catherine W. Hollis, Virginia Woolf Miscellany, Vol. 97 (2), 2021)
