A brand new biography about the woman known as the mother of Virginia Woolf: Julia Prinsep Stephen (7 February 1846-5 May 1895)

This is just a quick post filled with details about a biography I am currently reading. You cannot buy it online in book or even kindle or ebook form. Hopefully, in future.  However, read the details below to find out how to read this fantastic biography online for yourself!  I am reading every chapter as slowly as possible because I don't want it to end...

I WILL PROVIDE THE LINK BELOW TO MARION DELL'S WEBSITE, so you can read the biography at will. 

Image taken from website, The Elusive Julia Prinsep Stephen

care of Marion Dell

 So, who was Julia Prinsep Stephen besides being called, 'The mother of Virginia Woolf' (and also Vanessa Bell)?  Dr. Marion Dell, Vice-Chairman of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain has written a brand new biography where you can learn as much about her life as you would like. Dr. Dell's stunning and impeccable research has brought Julia Stephen refreshingly to life; so much so, you would swear she is standing in front of you narrating her life story herself. 

Of course, there was more to Julia Prinsep Stephen then her famous children (or child). Her lineage dates back to not only the Prinseps but also the Pattles of Calcutta. Her aunt was photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron and she lived during a time of great poets i.e. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and authors as Henry James and Charles Dickens. William Makepeace Thackeray, author of Vanity Fair bears a very important connection and mention but you'll have to read Dr. Dell's biography to find out more...

Book cover created by Dr. Marion Dell. 

Image taken from her website, The Elusive Julia Prinsep Stephen

There are several sections and tabs on the website filled with all kinds of background information to the author, Dr. Marion Dell as well as her previous books which are Bloomsbury and Virginia Woolf related.  Marion has been uploading several chapters at a time under the Biography tab on her website. So far, the first four chapters are available to read. Take a poke around and I really hope you like what you find. 

To read, A Vision of Beauty by Marion Dell,  The Elusive Julia Prinsep Stephen

The correspondence of Julia Margaret Cameron and Julia Prinsep Stephen at The Berg Collection, New York Public Library

 

The New York Public Library taken from the northeast corner of 5th Ave. and 42nd Street, 1908, New York City.Gelatin Silver Print.

The famous New York Public Library or 42nd Street Library, NYC, 2016

New York City is my home. I was born here and I will probably be buried here. When it comes to the subject of research, The New York Public Library's Berg Collection houses one of the largest and most comprehensible collections in the United States. The application process just to do research there is one of the most thorough I have ever applied for. Not only must you fill out the application listing your professional details, personal details, you need a professional reference of someone who is familiar with your research project. There is a total number of material you can request comprising, manuscripts, correspondence, maps, photographs, books, etc. After you apply, there is a waiting process then you are notified via email as to whether or not you are approved. Needless to say, I was a worried wreck. My goal for my research project is to glean the most personalized familial understanding of Julia Margaret Cameron and those in her inner circle. 

Leslie Stephen by Julia Margaret Cameron,  late 1860s

Julia Prinsep Stephen (née Jackson, formerly Mrs Duckworth)

by Julia Margaret Cameron, albumen print, 1867

The Berg Collection houses the Sir Leslie Stephen collection of papers. Sir Leslie Stephen (28 November 1832 – 22 February 1904) was an English literary editor, literary critic, essayist and biographer. He was also the husband of Julia Prinsep Stephen the niece of Julia Margaret Cameron. Together, during their marriage, they had four children:  Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf, Thoby Stephen and Adrian Stephen.  Within the collection of papers I requested two letters written by Julia Margaret Cameron; one to her sister, Mia Jackson (nee Pattle) mother of Julia Prinsep Stephen and another letter written to Julia Prinsep Duckworth one month before her marriage to Leslie Stephen. Also, I requested three letters Julia Prinsep Stephen wrote to three of her children: Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf and her son from her previous marriage to Herbert Duckworth, George Herbert Duckworth. Lastly, I requested two photos of Julia Prinsep Stephen taken by Julia Margaret Cameron.

 Berg Collection, Research Room, New York Public Library

I received the approval within 48 hours via email along with detailed instructions as to what was allowed inside the Berg Collection research room and what was not allowed inside. To anyone doing research, the requests are pretty standard. For instance, my name was added to a list of researchers on a day and time I chose to go. You have the entire day with your requested materials. I didn't think I would be nervous but as usual, I was! 

 I arrived a half an hour after the library opened. You must bring your photo identification and your library card. I stood outside the door, on the third floor and rang the bell. I looked through the glass window of the door and saw one young man seated at the table to the left and nobody else. After  a few minutes, a young man opened the door and I told him I had an appointment to do research today. I had my library card and my identification in my hand! Yes, I was eager!  The door closed behind us and the room was so quiet. He checked the list and told me to sit at the desk and fill out two forms which I did. I was then given a small card with my name and details on it good for one year of entrance to the Berg Collection, if I chose to do more research. I couldn't believe it. I wouldn't have to apply again, just email via the website and that's it!  Every item you requested is stored in the libraries computer. So, the librarian checks the requested list of materials then brings you to the card catalog- remember those!!   You must fill out small, individual forms per research item you requested including the call number, author, title, date found on the card catalogs under person's name you are researching. This takes much time but that's their process. Then, you give the small forms to the librarian who disappears to a room in the back and your materials are brought to your desk.  You can have them given to you one at a time or a stack at your desk. I had a stack, let's say. Your belongings are kept in a locker and they only give you writing paper and a pencil for notes. If you want photos taken you must fill out more forms and need more references beforehand to gain  approval. I didn't need that in this case. 

Here are the two photographs of Julia Prinsep Stephen by Julia Margaret Cameron. These are the only Cameron photographs housed at the New York Public Library at least for the time being. I can tell you that they are both very large in size on thick print paper. They were taken seven years apart 1867 and 1874 during two different phases of Julia Stephen's life. Each photograph was held within white mounted borders and wrapped in a huge paper folder. You could easily take the photo out of the border and hold it in your hands, which I did. The photograph on the right had the 'Colnaghi' name embossed in a circular ring at the bottom of it. Both photographs back in the 1960s were auctioned off and sent to Chicago as it said in an enclosed note kept inside the folder. Good to see them back within the library archives. 

One of Julia Margaret Cameron's letters showing her handwriting. 

In the Old Palace, Kandy, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) by Marianne North, 1880

Now, the first of Julia Margaret Cameron's letters was written on onion skin paper that was once white and crisp but now yellowed and stained by blackened ink.  There was no stationery embossed just thin paper reading atop:  Kalutara (Ceylon) Feb. 5, 1878.   The letter is addressed, my beloved Julia and Mrs. Cameron is replying to a letter her niece, Julia Prinsep Duckworth has written her. Now, at the time Julia Duckworth (soon to be Stephen) is widowed with children living with Leslie Stephen and his children who is also very recently widowed as well.  They are both lonely. Leslie is successful in his career but lonely and not sure how he will care for his young children when Julia is brought in to help his family in any way she can. She is a great comfort to him and he describes her as 'an angel'. Her beauty is not missed by him but he can see her recent sudden loss of her husband a few years before has left such a young woman guarded yet still oddly strong willed. Leslie and Julia have long talks and a friendship develops. He is unsure of her attraction but she is aware of his. She writes for advice to her Aunt Julia (Mrs. Cameron).  Julia Margaret Cameron's surviving letter, which is what I read, left me gobsmacked to say the least. There I sat in this third floor research room open mouthed, hand over mouth, reading the religious, spiritual, and intimate thoughts of an aunt to her saddened young niece.  It didn't matter that Cameron was a photographer living in what is now Sri Lanka, traveling between Ceylon and Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight with her family all the while maintaining a close circle of friends with some of the greatest painters and poets of the nineteenth-century.  

 

This photograph was taken on the veranda of Julia Margaret Cameron's home in Kalutara in 1877 by Julia Margaret Cameron. 

The woman painting is Marianne North who was visiting her  at the time. 

 

Bombay Pedlars on Mrs Cameron’s Verandah by Marianne North, c.1878.   

Back to the letter. Mrs. Cameron advises her niece to  follow her instincts and feelings for Leslie Stephen. Cameron believes with her entire heart and soul that Leslie Stephen is the perfect one for her niece. Cameron uses strong talk of believing in a higher power, in god to guide her as to know what to do next in her life. Cameron tells her that she has always known how Leslie Stephen's would be a kind and good man that would not only take care of her but would be the absolute man to balance her niece's independent will. They have been brought together by sad circumstances of death and loss of their spouses but together their union would be the union of twin souls who spiritually could heal their wounded hearts and bring them peace of mind and true happiness. Mrs. Cameron describes being able to spiritually see such depth of inner sadness  and turmoil going on inside her niece Julia Prinsep Duckworth. Mrs. Cameron does not use the word grief to mean to say that grief has brought them together. She is adamant on this. Instead, she makes clear that a sacred marriage and union between Leslie and Julia is what God wants and what Aunt Julia impresses upon younger Julia. Cameron provides examples of both their lives to support her strong belief of the two of them coming together as man and wife and making a life for them both. Mrs. Cameron says that her life with Leslie Stephen waits for her and will be there not out of a pity or sense of grief but because the angels and higher powers are willing it to be so. Cameron wants her niece to have a good life not one filled with anymore tragedy. For Mrs. Cameron knew almost on an intuitive level that you would find in a clairvoyant. It was an amazing letter and opened up such an understanding and a much broader sense of who Julia Margaret Cameron was day-to-day as wife, mother and aunt. Well, it appeared that six weeks after this letter on March 26, 1878 Leslie Stephen married Julia Prinsep (nee Duckworth). They had a happy and fulfilling life together and it appeared that good old Aunt Julia's instincts were right!  Good thing her niece listened. 

mother and daughter Julia Prinsep Stephen with her mother Maria Jackson (nee Pattle) 'Mia' sister of 

Julia Margaret Cameron. 1867, NPG

Now the second letter that Mrs. Cameron wrote was the next day on February 6, 1878, to her sister, Mia Jackson. She was at Kalutara (Ceylon) This was a four page letter on that same onion skin plain paper. In this letter Julia basically catches her sister up on the business going on between her family at the time including her sons and her husband, Charles Hay Cameron whom she always calls, 'Charles'. She mentions a memory of Leslie Stephen standing in the hall at her home in Freshwater and how later on her friend, Alfred Tennyson had a talk with Leslie about faith and religion.  You should have seen me holding the thin stained paper staring at Julia Margaret Cameron's handwritten Alfred Tennyson. The letter didn't really contain much family detail it was more of a letter where one sister tries to reassure another sister that their niece is making a good choice and it will work out.  

Lastly, the letters written by niece, Julia Prinsep Stephen were a joy to read. It was like pulling away the veil on a woman shrouded in secrecy and a life of which not very much has been detailed in her own words. Her correspondence survives but as far as I know she didn't leave diaries looking back on her life, so we must look to others to provide a portrait of Julia Prinsep Stephen. Her penmanship is small in size and neatly written across the page. Her letters were written on powder blue embossed stationery with only her home address atop the right side of the page.  It's strange but I never dreamt I would be able to read the letters of Julia Prinsep Stephen. Her daughter Virginia Woolf is one of my most favorite writers. I understand losing a mother very young in life, so Virginia's strong yet weakened facade coupled by mental instability fascinates and saddens me.  

I am not going to go in to full details of the context of the letters it was pretty basic mother to child notes. Things like remember to do this, take care of yourself when traveling, eat healthy, get outside and don't stay indoors too often it is not good for your soul. Things like this.  

The first letter was to her daughter, Vanessa Bell written on that blue stationery from 22 Hyde Park Gate, S.W. but undated. Her greeting is, "Dearest vessa"  and she signed it, "ma".  There was only one letter.

Julia Stephen with Vanessa, 1879

Next letter was written to her daughter, Virginia Woolf on that same blue paper from 22 Hyde Park Gate, S.W.  again undated and only one letter.  Her greeting is, "my darling ginia" and she signs off, "your loving old ma".  

Julia Stephen with baby Virginia (Virginia Woolf)

by H.H. Cameron, 1884

Interestingly enough, four letters by Julia Stephen written to her son George Herbert Duckworth remain. This was her son by her former marriage to Herbert Duckworth.  There are various letters written very lovingly in tone throughout his life, childhood, college years and later on.  By reading them it was plain to see that she was over protective of him but understandingly enough. She worried he would die suddenly as his father did.  She needn't have worried. He lived a long life 1868 to 1934. He was a public servant who later became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. He married and had children as well. Sadly, he would be known for the sexual abuse of his half-sister, Virginia Woolf. 

In her letters the greeting was always the same, "my darling georgie" and she signed off, "your loving old ma".

Julia Duckworth with son George Herbert Duckworth, 1868

I know this is a very long post but I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did researching and preparing it. I wanted to make sure to share everything with you.  

Author interview with Marion Dell discussing her latest book, Virginia Woolf's Influential Forebears Julia Margaret Cameron, Anny Thackeray Ritchie, Julia Prinsep Stephen

I am so thrilled and deeply honored to bring you an interview I conducted with Marion Dell. Thanks to  Pan Macmillan UK, I was able to reach out to her, introduce myself, tell her how much I enjoyed, 'Influential Forebears'. She could not have been more gracious and kind. Later on, to my delight, she also agreed to an interview. I sent her my questions concerning her focus on the novels of Virginia Woolf, and those related to and closely engaged in her circle. For instance, Julia Margaret Cameron, Anny Thackeray Ritchie, and Virginia Woolf's mother, Julia Prinsep Stephen.



<----Julia Margaret Cameron in 1860s

 ===> Anny Thackeray Ritchie in 1867 a photograph taken by Julia Margaret Cameron.

 
Center below is the most recognizable face of the beautiful woman, Julia Prinsep Stephen. A photograph taken by Julia Margaret Cameron in 1867.

                                                                                 

 1) I love how your focus is on the family and the family connection. Can you explain why those three women: Julia Margaret Cameron, Anny Thackeray Ritchie, and Julia Prinsep Stephen? What makes them Influential Forebears?

They were all influential in helping to form Woolf as a woman and as a writer. Of course they were not the only influences. I chose them because they were strong influences right from her birth and because they were linked to her genealogically. They were part of her matrilineage.

2) You write about Virginia Woolf as creative spirit, as writer and author focusing on aspects of her two novels Night and Day and The Years. I was fascinated about your chapter on her worry of ‘the black Stephen madness’.  What surprised you most about this aspect of her life?

I think that she experienced periods of ‘blackness’ throughout her life. I think she was what would now be diagnosed as bi-polar. But of course the term did not exist then. In her opinion, and in her youth, any mental illness or disorder was considered something to be ashamed of and hidden. We no longer regard it this way. I think that for her, although it caused her heartache and sadness, it was predominantly a positive condition. In the manic phases she was at her most productive and creative. She would not have been the great writer she was without this energy and ambivalence in her personality.

3) We both share a love of researching family connections within nineteenth-century poets and artists. Again, in this book, your research is incredible. Please describe a bit of your research process when writing a book. How do you go about it?  Also, when is research enough before you say, ‘now I can write the book’? Or do you write and research at the same time as you go along in the process?

I do most of the research first. Then as I write I might find gaps which need to be plugged. It takes a long time. I have been researching the life of Julia Stephen, Woolf’s mother, for about ten years already, while also researching and writing other things. It is difficult because she left so little of herself in her own voice; no diary, no photograph album, few extant letters. But it is the part I most enjoy – especially going to relevant places and meeting people who are involved and interested. I also need time to try to make connections between things and to collect archive material such as photographs, magazine articles, or letters and diaries. Often the most interesting insights, and amazing pieces of information, come from serendipity; from chance meetings, from unexpected sources, or when I am looking for something else entirely.

4) Was there any aspect of these Influential Forebears: Julia Margaret Cameron, Anny Thackeray Ritchie and Julia Prinsep Stephen that surprised you when conducting your research? Have you learned new things about them that you didn’t perhaps know before? Any stories about them you could share? Funny anecdotes perhaps?

What I discovered, which I didn’t really know before I started this, was how inter-connected these three women were. I began with their individual connections with Woolf, but then found that the three of them formed a strong, mutually supportive, collaborative sisterhood of professional women. I like all the stories of how Cameron browbeat her subjects in order to make them sit for her. Virginia Woolf took lots of the funny anecdotes for her play Freshwater, which is hilarious, as well as somewhat unkind.

5) Has your opinion of Virginia Woolf changed in any way since writing a few books about her and her family now? In what way?

The more I read of Woolf’s work, both fiction and non-fiction, the more I am confirmed in my opinion that she is a great writer. Since doing my research I have become more aware of the sheer range of her work. Also of her strong sense of humour and of close observation.

6) Julia Prinsep Stephen is a fascinating woman with not much known about her life. Anything you could share that you love most about her or something that fascinated you perhaps?

This is still a work in progress, but I am finding a fun loving, vivacious, gossipy, lively woman, very much at odds with the image usually presented of her, dressed in black, in the gloomy photographs towards the end of her life.

Julia Stephen with Virginia on her lap, 1884

                                                                                                       by Henry H.H. Cameron, Smith College.

About the Author

Marion Dell is an Independent writer and lecturer based in the U.K. and has previously taught at the Open University. She is the co-author with (Marion Whybrow) of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell: Remembering St. Ives (2003), and she is currently writing a biography of Julia Stephen.  

To read my review, Virginia Woolf's Influential Forebears

To purchase, Amazon US  and to purchase  Amazon UK

My review of Virginia Woolf's Influential Forebears by Marion Dell

In Virginia Woolf's Influential Forebears, Marion Dell reveals nineteenth-century legacies which inform Woolf's work and shape her as a writing woman, pre-eminent in twentieth-century literary modernism. She identifies specific lines of descent from three of Woolf's forebears: her great-aunt, the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, the writer she called aunt, Anny Thackeray Ritchie, and her mother Julia Prinsep Stephen. Dell shows how the work and influence of these three women is textually, artistically, biographically and genealogically embedded in Woolf's own. Woolf's response to them was ambivalent, revealing her conflicted relationship with her past. But ambivalence was also one of their legacies to her and a positive aesthetic in her work. Though she frequently obscures their influence she recognises them as invisible presences. Close reading of the novels which frame this book, Night and Day and The Years, shows Woolf's lifelong engagement with the lives and works of Cameron, Ritchie, and Stephen.

 

Hardcover, 222 pages

Published October 13th 2015 by Palgrave Macmillan

Thank you to Palgrave Macmillan for my review copy.

I happen to adore Virginia Woolf's novels. Her writing is beautiful. For me, the words come alive on the page; her characters seem real, the events feel as if they have occurred regardless of whether it be a war, a death or a love affair. However, I am no expert on her I just hope to understand where her insecurities and fears come from. To do that one must inevitably research the family line. One must find out all there is to know from recorded documentation.

In Virginia Woolf's case, I urge every person who loves her novels as I do to make a space on your bookshelf for this very special critical analysis of Virginia Woolf's Influential Forebears. For at the heart of it Dell traces the influence of the lives of Julia Margaret Cameron, Anny Thackeray Ritchie and her mother, Julia Prinsep Stephen. In a chapter by chapter overview two of Woolf's novels are focused upon, e.g. Night and Day and The Years. Characters are culled out from novel chapters and they seem to re-emerge almost in a reincarnated state, thus rexamined by Dell herself as she juxtaposes each forbearing woman.

What stands out most to me is the expert and thorough research Marion Dell has done. Having researched the personal lives of these 'Influential Forebears' a bit myself, I was fascinated to read of the fear of 'the black Stephen madness' that worried Virginia Woolf as genetically linked between The Stephen Family and The Ritchie Family.  This was a light bulb moment for me, I must say!  Dell's research is magnificent. Immediately, I was turning page after page, smiling in recognition of especially Julia Margaret Cameron's descriptions in mention of stories by Virginia Woolf's The Searchlight and photographic descriptions of some of Cameron's sitters as well.  Understandably, some of the most heartwarming and heartbreaking chapters focused on Woolf's memories of her mother, the acclaimed beauty, Julia Prinsep Stephen. The maternal bond between mother and daughter does not end or perish as a result of paternal death. Instead, Julia Prinsep Stephen's is resurrected, lovingly lifted out of her aunt Cameron's albumen prints and placed back into the loving childhood arms of her troubled and talented daughter, Adeline Stephen better known as Virginia Woolf.

Virginia Woolf's Influential Forebears by Marion Dell is dense, complicated reading but the familial bonds of love and pride transcend time and Dell has captured it.

For more information or to order directly, Palgrave Macmillan

If you prefer, Amazon US  or if you live overseas, Amazon UK

Julia Prinsep Stephen (née Jackson; formerly Mrs Duckworth) (7 February 1846- May 5th, 1895)

 

 Julia Prinsep Stephen (née Jackson; formerly Mrs Duckworth) by Julia Margaret Cameron

albumen print, 1867, NPG

'Pity has no creed. We are bound to these sufferers by the tie of sisterhood and while life lasts we will help, soothe, and, if we can, love them.' Women are not all blind followers of men. They have power to think as well, and they will not weaken their power of helping and loving by fearlessly owning their ignorance when they should be convinced of it. Women should not reject religion merely because they desire to please men. Man and woman have equal rights but with different areas of influence. Women do not stand on the same ground as men with regard to work, though we are far from allowing that our work is lower or less important than theirs, but we ought and do claim the same equality of morals.'  Agnostic Women, Julia Duckworth Stephen: Stories for Children, Essays for Adults, pg. 243 and Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Life by Gordon Lyndall, pg. 20

When Aunt Julia Cameron (1815-1879) took an albumen print of her ‘favorite niece', Mrs. Herbert Duckworth, the year was 1867 and Mrs. Duckworth was newly married less than a year. She was born Julia Jackson and her image would go down in the annals of history as one of the great beauties but little is known of this mysterious woman. An image captured in a moment by a family member would launch infinite mystery and curiosity.  

Julia Prinsep Stephen (née Jackson; formerly Mrs Duckworth); Mia Jackson

by The London Photographic Company
albumen print, circa 1867, NPG

She was born Julia Prinsep Jackson on 7 February 1846 at Calcutta, India. She was the daughter of Dr. John Jackson and Maria Theodosia Pattle, the youngest sister of Julia Margaret Cameron. The Prinsep name enters the frame when another aunt Sarah Pattle married Henry Thoby Prinsep (1792-1878). She became cousin to their son Valentine Cameron Prinsep. Julia and her mother known as ‘Mia’ stayed with Sarah and Thoby Prinsep beginning in 1848 until Dr. Jackson returned to England in 1855.  The matriarch of the family moved them into Brent Lodge, Hendon, while Julia was educated at home becoming her mother’s nurse and companion. The Jackson’s lived at Brent Lodge for ten years and the story goes that a young, twenty-one year old beauty, Julia Jackson paid a visit to her cousins at Little Holland House where she met a thirty-four year old barrister named Herbert Duckworth. She later admitted part of her attraction to him was his straightforwardness with her. He stood out among the other men who ‘attempted’ to court her; namely, sculptor Thomas Woolner and painter Holman-Hunt! 

Julia Duckworth with her husband Herbert Duckworth by Oscar Rejlander, 1867/70

albumen print, Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College, Leslie Stephen's Photograph Album, plate 33a

 Mr. and Mrs. Duckworth were married for three years. They were devoted to each other, rarely apart, ‘the greatest happiness that can fall to the lot of a woman’ until in September 1870, while Herbert was attempting to pick a ripe fig from a tree branch, an undiagnosed internal abscess burst and he died. Julia Duckworth lay grieving for hours on her husband’s grave at Orchardleigh. She gave birth to their son, Gerald Duckworth six weeks later at the tender age of twenty-four. She went from being restrained and undemonstrative to no longer being, ‘inclined to optimism’ taking on a ‘melancholy view of life’. She would describe her loss in one simple word:  ‘shipwreck’.  She elaborated only saying, ‘The world was clothed in drab shrouded in a crape-veil’.

Nurse with Gerald Duckworth, c. 1871
Anonymous
Reproduction of plate 34i from Leslie Stephen’s Photograph Album
Original: albumen print. Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College

The fact that Julia was a young mother would help sustain her and keep her going. She drew inner strength from her maternal instincts and the love of her baby. Herbert’s resulting loss would leave Julia with a life-long understanding and need to help those suffering any pain, illness, and loss of any kind. She adapted a stoicism that only those in her inner circle would observe and comment on. She rejected Christianity and began reading articles by a man named Leslie Stephen about agnosticism which brought her much comfort. Leslie was married to Minny Thackeray, the daughter of novelist William Makepeace Thackeray during this time. Julia developed a strong lifelong friendship with Minny’s sister Anny Thackeray. 

 Harriet Marian (“Minny”) Thackeray Stephen (1840-1875) and Leslie Stephen (1832-1904) are seen here standing outdoors, probably on their wedding trip to Switzerland in 1867. Reproduction of plate 35d from Leslie Stephen’s Photograph Album.
Original: albumen print,  Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College

 According to Leslie's letters, it was Julia’s remote and reserved approach that he first noticed about her. She met his practical and emotional needs.  Caring for Leslie fulfilled her nursing vocation as well as a need for safety, companionship and appreciation that she craved and missed.  He later described a winter’s evening when he and Minny were sitting at home ‘in perfect happiness’. Julia looked in and found them ‘so happy together that she thought the presence of a desolate widow incongruous, and left us to return to her own solitary hearth’.  It should not be surprising that Julia was visiting The Stephen Family since she was a friend of The Thackeray’s going back to her days at Little Holland House. It was Julia who helped Anny keep her manuscripts in order and did copying work for her. Julia said of Anny, ‘she helped me into some sort of shelter and made things more real to me again’ when her husband Herbert Duckworth died. Sadly, it was that night after Julia’s visit that Minny went into severe convulsions and suffered what we today would call eclampsia. She died on November 28, 1875. Julia went to Brighton with Leslie and Anny shortly after Minny’s death. 

Leslie, Anny and Laura moved from 8 Southwell Gardens to 11 Hyde Park Gate South, in June 1876 when Leslie inherited it from Minny. Julia helped her new neighbors settle in. She had just moved from 90 Redcliffe Gardens into 13 Hyde Park Gate. It was during this period that Leslie Stephen would refer to Julia Duckworth as his ‘saving angel’. He was in danger of becoming depressed and a recluse. Julia saw the writing on the wall and recognized the signs of grief. She spent all of her free time making herself available to Leslie’s every need. Their children played together and one year later, on July 5, 1877, Leslie knew he was falling in love with Julia. He had papers drawn up naming Julia household accountant of sorts even giving her guardianship of his only daughter with Minny named Laura Makepeace Stephen (1870–1945) who was born three months premature and suffered from mental retardation according to Leslie's letters.  

Leslie and Julia Stephen in Grindelwald, Switzerland, 1889
by Gabriel Loppé (1825-1913)

Reproduction of plate 39e from Leslie Stephen’s Photograph Album
Original: albumen print (17.0 x 12.3 cm.)
Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College

On March 26, 1878 Leslie and Julia were married. Even though, Laura was looked after by governesses in a separate part of the house Julia had her committed to the Earlswood Asylum for the Imbecile and Weak-Minded. Laura’s family rarely visited her.  

Even with periods of difficulty in their marriage, Leslie’s letters reveal a harmonious domestic life surrounded by the joy and happiness his children brought him. It was during their marriage that Leslie became founding editor of Dictionary of National Biography (1885).  He was a very well known editor, critic, and biographer by this time. Together they had four children:  Vanessa Stephen (1879), Thoby Stephen (1880), Virginia (1882), and Adrian Stephen (1883).  Vanessa Stephen became Vanessa Bell an English painter, interior designer, member of The Bloomsbury Group. The most well-known of the siblings was Virginia Stephen who became Virginia Woolf. Thoby became known for starting The Bloomsbury Group and his brother Adrian became an author, psychoanalyst and member of The Bloomsbury Group. 

Julia Stephen at the Bear, Grindelwald, Switzerland, 1889
by Gabriel Loppé (1825-1913)
Reproduction of plate 39c from
Leslie Stephen’s Photograph Album
Original: silver print 

 Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College

During their marriage, The Stephen Family lived at 22 Hyde Park which had been Julia’s house before she shared it with Leslie. The children complained about the cold, calling it ‘a regular mausoleum’. It was set in a narrow, gloomy cul-de-sac, across the street from Kensignton Gardens. It was a five-story house with two extra levels and a rear extension that was added in the autumn of 1879. According to their daughter Virginia, ‘her mother sketched the plans of the house to save on architect’s fees’. The top of the house was where Leslie’s large study, library, night and day nurseries for their four children could be found. Vanessa remembers coal fires warmed the nurseries making the house, ‘very snug, if stuffy’ with ‘a very unhealthy atmosphere’. Windows were never opened. On the first floor three bedrooms were reserved for the Duckworth children as well as the marital bedroom and another nursery. The servants used the basement as their own space and the kitchen was looked after by the cook, Sophie Ferrell. On the ground floor you would find the dining room and large double room opening from, ‘a cheerful little room, almost entirely made of glass with a skylight, windows all along one side looking on to the back garden.’ A total of sixteen people lived here and all daily arrangements were supervised by Julia Stephen. 

When a lamp flares up in the nursery; Ellen, the housemaid, is called, then Annie, the parlor maid, then Adrian, ‘summoned his mater and Thoby’. Julia successfully deals with every situation showing examples of her energy and enthusiasm. She rises at 6 and ‘defied the burst pipes alone’. She is the kind of person who ‘sees gold under a covering of copper.’  Although, Julia is ‘an ardent lover of rats’ she wants a dog to rid her of the creatures that destroy her provisions; she adores birds and scatters crumbs to ‘entice the feathered favorites’. 

According to Hyde Park Gate News, ‘there are trips to glass blowing, a ventriloquist, the pantomime, Kensington Park, the Zoo, birthday parties, plays, musicals, Gondola rides, skating, and an ice carnival in Regents Park.’  

 Talland House, c.1882-1894

Reproduction of plate 37c from Leslie Stephen’s Photograph Album
Original: silver print (10.3 x 14.7 cm.)
Presented by Quentin and Anne Olivier Bell.
Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College

Some of the happiest times were spent in Cornwall, St. Ives, at Talland House a retreat from the city. This is where the family spent summers from 1882 to 1894, with visits from friends and relatives. In contrast to the Hyde Park townhouse, Talland House is full of light and warmth. Virginia looked back at her years here as, ‘days of pure enjoyment’. As children they ate cherries, cream, bread and jam, grapes, peaches, strawberry ices, cake and chocolates and remember the food most of all later in life. The garden was divided into separate sections by thick sweet-smelling escallonia. Virginia explained how every small room had its own function: the coffee garden, the cricket lawn, the Love Corner—covered in purple jackmanii, the Fountain, the kitchen garden, the strawberry beds, the pond, the Lookout place. 

They played endless games and activities: Up Jenkins, cricket, rounders, croquet, football, cat and mouse, hide and seek, Tom Tiddler’s ground, charades, etc.,  A neighbor at St. Ives, described Julia’s children as, ‘tall and fair, never mixing with other children, almost like Gods and Goddesses.’ 

Julia Stephen was always there to support her family and friends. She nursed the sick and dying, travelled round London by bus visiting hospitals and workhouses and she was never afraid to speak out ‘on behalf of workhouse inmates whose half-pint beer allocation had been removed by temperance campaigners’. Pall Mall Gazette, 4 October 1879. In 1883, she published her book, Notes from Sick Rooms, a discussion of good nursing practice, which demonstrated attention to detail and to language.

Although these stories date back to 1885,‘Julia Duckworth Stephens Stories for Children, Essays for Adults’ was published in 1987. These consisted of stories she told her very own children. They were stories that promoted the values of family life including kindness to animals. For instance, with titles such as, ‘Cat’s Meat’, ‘The Monkey on the Moor’, ‘The Black Cat or the Grey Parrot’ as well as many more. 

On May 5th, 1895, Julia Stephen died at the age of 49. Virginia Woolf’s memories of her mother would remain permanently tangible; keeping her memory alive always, ‘She wore a white dressing gown and next to her were great starry purple passion flowers, the buds part empty, part full. She wore three rings diamond, emerald, and opal with silver bracelets that twisted and jingled as she lay sleepless. Their sound meant that she would be coming to sooth her restless daughter telling her of rainbows and bells. She remembered how her mother held her very straight’. Julia’s final words to her thirteen year old daughter as she crept out of the door were, ‘Hold yourself straight, my little Goat’.  

   

Julia Stephen, 1894
Anonymous

 Reproduction of plate 38k from
Leslie Stephen’s Photograph Album
Original: silver print (7.0 x 5.4 cm.)
Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College

 I couldn't resist adding this photograph of Julia's mother 

Maria Jackson (nee Pattle) (1818-1892)