Virginia Woolf: A Sound Investment

On April 12, 1937 Virginia Woolf became a star. The occasion: her appearance on the cover of Time magazine; the impetus: the publication of her new novel, The Years. For the anonymous writer of the article, celebrating Virginia Woolf was tantamount to putting money in the bank. Looking back to the extraordinary success of Gone With the Wind the year before, he notes that among "literary brokers" the "opinion is that Margaret Mitchell was a grand wildcat stock but Virginia Woolf a sound investment." Eighty-five years later Virginia Woolf's star power is still at work in both our material and cultural economy, manifested by the numerous new editions of Mrs. Dalloway that have appeared since the novel was released from copyright in the US in 2021. Not surprisingly, one of these has an introduction by Michael Cunningham, whose prize-winning novel The Hours, made into an Oscar winning film, guaranteed his edition both attention and sales. Based on the assumption that The Hours can be understood as a form of fan fiction and read through the lens of fan theory, this chapter looks back to the original moment when Cunningham first capitalized on Woolf's value before recontextualizing the phenomenon within Mrs. Dalloway's current moment of fame. Virginia Woolf, it is clear, is still a sound investment, accruing for those who can claim ownership of her stock both economic and cultural capital. Given her worth, the struggles over who "owns" Virginia Woolf and her texts becomes a more than academic argument.