Woolf in August: Sapphic Love in Orlando (1928)
Sapphic Love in Orlando (1928) with Alison Hennegan
‘Sapphist’ was a favourite word for Virginia Woolf whether encountered in her published works or in her correspondence or in her diaries. She can be coy, playful, mocking, inquisitive, sometimes rather salaciously so, wondering and admiring, more than a little envious, but usually seeming to put a distance between herself and the term.
There would, of course, be one stage in her life when she might appear to qualify for more than merely honorary inclusion in the category of ‘Sapphist’, and that was during the period of her brief affair with Vita Sackville West, the inspiration and implicit dedicatee of Orlando, first published in 1928, just before Woolf gave, at Cambridge’s Girton and Newnham Colleges, then both still women-only, the talk which would eventually become A Room of One’s Own.
This lecture seeks to place Woolf and notions of Sapphism in both a personal and broader cultural context. Alison Hennegan is a retired Fellow of Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge.
Sunday 31 August 2025
18.00-20.00 British Summer Time
19.00-21.00 Central European Summer Time
Morning in the Americas
Please check the time for your time zone.
Lecture fees
£33.00 full price
£28.00 students on a low income
£28.00 CAMcard holders
£28.00 Members of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain
Sapphic Love in Orlando (1928) with Alison Hennegan
‘Sapphist’ was a favourite word for Virginia Woolf whether encountered in her published works or in her correspondence or in her diaries. She can be coy, playful, mocking, inquisitive, sometimes rather salaciously so, wondering and admiring, more than a little envious, but usually seeming to put a distance between herself and the term.
There would, of course, be one stage in her life when she might appear to qualify for more than merely honorary inclusion in the category of ‘Sapphist’, and that was during the period of her brief affair with Vita Sackville West, the inspiration and implicit dedicatee of Orlando, first published in 1928, just before Woolf gave, at Cambridge’s Girton and Newnham Colleges, then both still women-only, the talk which would eventually become A Room of One’s Own.
This lecture seeks to place Woolf and notions of Sapphism in both a personal and broader cultural context. Alison Hennegan is a retired Fellow of Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge.
Sunday 31 August 2025
18.00-20.00 British Summer Time
19.00-21.00 Central European Summer Time
Morning in the Americas
Please check the time for your time zone.
Lecture fees
£33.00 full price
£28.00 students on a low income
£28.00 CAMcard holders
£28.00 Members of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain
Sapphic Love in Orlando (1928) with Alison Hennegan
‘Sapphist’ was a favourite word for Virginia Woolf whether encountered in her published works or in her correspondence or in her diaries. She can be coy, playful, mocking, inquisitive, sometimes rather salaciously so, wondering and admiring, more than a little envious, but usually seeming to put a distance between herself and the term.
There would, of course, be one stage in her life when she might appear to qualify for more than merely honorary inclusion in the category of ‘Sapphist’, and that was during the period of her brief affair with Vita Sackville West, the inspiration and implicit dedicatee of Orlando, first published in 1928, just before Woolf gave, at Cambridge’s Girton and Newnham Colleges, then both still women-only, the talk which would eventually become A Room of One’s Own.
This lecture seeks to place Woolf and notions of Sapphism in both a personal and broader cultural context. Alison Hennegan is a retired Fellow of Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge.
Sunday 31 August 2025
18.00-20.00 British Summer Time
19.00-21.00 Central European Summer Time
Morning in the Americas
Please check the time for your time zone.
Lecture fees
£33.00 full price
£28.00 students on a low income
£28.00 CAMcard holders
£28.00 Members of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain