Virginia Woolf: writing life
summer course in Cambridge 2025
IN PERSON
SUNDAY 20 JULY TO FRIDAY 25 JULY 2025
There is nothing quite like studying in the beautiful city of Cambridge.
Summer course lectures at Clare Hall, 2023
STUDY
Take time each day in the summer course to read and think, and share the fruits of your reading in discussions and supervisions. Our students are all ages from 18 to 70+.
Clare Walker Gore’s supervision group, Clare Hall 2023
STAY
Our summer courses are based in a Cambridge college. You can live, study, and share some meals with the course participants. A rare opportunity to spend a week of discussion with other keen students of your subject. In 2025 our summer course lectures take place in the relaxed setting of Clare Hall. You can book accommodation at next-door Robinson College, or elsewhere.
Visit to the Wren Library, Trinity College, 2024
EXPLORE
Our summer courses include walks, talks, and excursions in Cambridge to places such as the Wren Library at Trinity College (above), Girton College, Newnham College, King's College, Trinity Hall, the Fitzwilliam Museum, and other places of interest.
The summer course in 2025 will run twice: first, live online, then in person in Cambridge. This is the page for the Cambridge course. For the online course, click here.
Our 2025 Virginia Woolf course will explore the theme of Virginia Woolf: Writing Life. How does one write a life - a fictional life; a real life? We will look at the real and imaginary lives in five of her most brilliant novels.
We will explore how Woolf writes the lives of her great fictional characters: Clarissa Dalloway, Septimus Smith, Mrs Ramsay, the six characters in The Waves. We will study how she uses, and challenges, the traditions of biography in Orlando (1928) and Flush (1933). We will think about Woolf’s own life as a writer, and what that meant. And we will do a reading of her only play, Freshwater, which takes a comical look at the lives of her Victorian forebears.
There will be a rich programme of lectures, supervisions (tutorials), talks, visits, and discussions. Our teachers include leading Woolf scholars and experienced Cambridge supervisors. We will spend a week immersed in the great writings and ideas of Virginia Woolf.
The course is based on 5 books which we will study in close detail, one book per day. Each day, there is a lecture and a supervision (tutorial), plus talks, visits in Cambridge, two communal dinners, and more.
The supervisions are based loosely on the practice in Cambridge colleges, in which small groups of 3 or 4 people work with a skilled supervisor. This is a rare opportunity to look closely at Woolf’s writings, learn more about her historical and cultural context, and to improve your close reading skills.
Course dates: 20-25 July 2025.
Arrive in Cambridge Sunday afternoon 20 July, depart Saturday morning 26 July 2025.
To book, click here.
Lectures
Monday 21 July 2025. Trudi Tate, Life and Death in Mrs Dalloway (1925)
Tuesday 22 July 2025. Ellie Mitchell, To the Lighthouse (1927): Writing from Life, Writing to Life
Wednesday 23 July 2025. Karina Jakubowicz, The Life of Orlando (1928)
Thursday 24 July 2025. Claire Davison, The Ripple of Life in The Waves (1931)
Friday 25 July 2025. Alison Hennegan, Writing Flush (1933)
Supervisions
After each lecture, you will have a supervision. This is a small tutorial group with 3 or 4 students working closely with a supervisor on the book of the day. This is one of the most rewarding parts of the course.
Provisional list of Talks, Visits and Readings
Visits
• Visit to Trinity Hall, where Woolf’s father Leslie Stephen was a Fellow
• Visit to Newnham College, where Woolf had several close connections
Talks
• Ann Kennedy Smith, The life and memoir of Jane Harrison, Fellow of Newnham College
• Marielle O’Neill on Leonard Woolf: Reflections on a Political Life
• Beth Rigel Daugherty on Woolf’s essays on biography (tbc)
• Claire Davison on Leslie Stephen: Life Force, Life Writer
Readings
• Group reading of Woolf’s only play, Freshwater, led by Ellie Mitchell
• Karina Jakubowicz, reading aloud from Woolf’s writing
For further information on the talks, please see this page.
Set Reading
Mrs Dalloway (1925)
To the Lighthouse (1927)
Orlando (1928)
The Waves (1931)
Flush (1933)
Optional Further Reading
Virginia Woolf, essays: ’The New Biography’, ‘On Being Ill’, ‘Leslie Stephen’, ‘The Art of Biography’, all in Woolf, Selected Essays, ed. David Bradshaw (2008)
Hermione Lee, Virginia Woolf (biography, 1996)
Susan Sellers, ed., Cambridge Companion to VW (2010)
Susan Sellers, Vanessa and Virginia (novel, 2009)
Susan Sellers, Firebird (novel, 2022)
Michael Whitworth, Virginia Woolf: Authors in Context (2005)
Virginia Woolf, Kew Gardens and Other Short Fiction, ed. Bryony Randall (2022)
Virginia Woolf, Moments of Being (2002)
Links
• Marion Dell, biography (website) of Julia Prinsep Stephen, mother of Virginia Woolf.
• Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain.
• Monk's House, National Trust.
• Charleston, National Trust.
• Paula Maggio, Blogging Woolf.
• Notes on Leonard Woolf.
Course fees
Full price £1300
Members VWSGB £1200
CAMcard holders £1200
Students on a low income £1150
Fees include VAT of 20%.
Photos by Jeremy Peters @jezpete
To book, scroll down and click on the image below.
