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# Virginia and Leonard Woolf's Hogarth Press Gets an Exhibition of Its Own
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/virginia-and-leonard-woolfs-hogarth-press-gets-an-exhibition-of-its-own/
- Published: 2026-08-27T18:08:36.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-27T19:59:08.000Z
- Description: They were both writers, and amongst the remarkable fruits of their union was a decision to open a small press, which in time grew into something far from small.
- Author: Michael Glover
- Tags: Books, Art Review, Virginia Woolf, Sussex, United Kingdom

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2026/08/Virginia-and-Leonard-Woolf--photographed-in-1914--The-Charleston-Trust-1.jpg)

Virginia and Leonard Woolf, photographed in 1914 (all photos courtesy The Charleston Trust)

SUSSEX, UK — *Ouch*!

Yes, there’s often a bit of a sting in Virginia Woolf’s comments, even about people of whom she is fond. “I’ve got a confession to make,” she once wrote. “I’m going to marry Leonard Wolf \[correct spelling: Woolf\]. He’s a penniless Jew. I’m more happy than anyone said was possible.” Is that spoken from a great height or not? After all, she was the daughter of the esteemed author Sir Leslie Stephen, hem hem.

“Wolf”and she married. They were both writers. And amongst the remarkable fruits of their union was a decision to open a small press, which in time grew into something far from small.

It was called The Hogarth Press, and a new exhibition has just opened to tell its story in a farmhouse set very much within Woolf country, by which I mean the Firle Estate in Sussex. In 1916 Virginia was out walking on the Downs, a ridge of hills smooth as the nap of a snooker table when seen from below, that runs along that part of the coast of England. She could see it from above: a house that became known as “Charleston.” 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2026/08/--LUCID_collectie_V_Woolf_055.jpg)

Virginia Woolf, **Kew Gardens* (1919) with woodcuts by her sister Vanessa Bell, Hogarth Press. © LUCID collective. 

It was a former farmhouse with a sheep barn and threshing barn in close attendance. Virginia recommended it to her sister, painter Vanessa Bell, who was looking for somewhere to live. Vanessa was a conscientious objector who had left London to find manual work on a farm – penance for her disobedience to a country at war. She and Duncan Grant bought the place which became their on-and-off home for more than half a century. In time they filled it with many interesting people, artists and writers for the most part, some of whom lived there for a while. They became known as the [Bloomsbury Group](https://hyperallergic.com/a-garden-of-ones-own-gardening-bohemia-bloomsbury-women-outdoors-london/).

Now, in a building that almost nudges at Charleston’s door, a new exhibition has opened to put on display about 200 books, all published by the Hogarth Press, telling the story of the press from its first beginnings in 1917.

It began with the purchase of a hand press by Leonard and Virginia, which was set up in the basement of Hogarth House, their home in London. The books were all handmade, which made for a lot of inky fingers. Each letter of each book had to be plucked out and locked into place. Virginia loved it. It gave her the freedom to do what she wanted with her own words. She had grown sick of the slowness and the tyrannizing of male editors. The press published her own novels, from *Jacob’s Room* (1922) and on. You can see them all in a single book case, Virginia’s books, with their wayward covers designed and realized by her sisterVanessa — the two sisters were true collaborators in the venture. 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2026/08/--LUCID_collectie_V_Woolf_070.jpg)

T.S. Eliot, **The Waste Land* (1922) Hogarth Press. © LUCID collective.

The press even proved to be a commercial success. It published established writers such as E. M. Forster, and others — and especially women — who were daring to experiment. It published the very first complete UK edition of T.S. Eliot’s *The Waste Land* in 1922\. Tom Eliot was a frequent visitor to the house. Virginia liked him, in her ouch, waspish way. 

“Yes I like talking to Tom,” she once wrote. “A glorified boy scout, he is tight & shiny as a wood louse. But there is well water in him, cold & pure.”

[Virginia Woolf and the Hogarth Press](https://www.charleston.org.uk/exhibition/virginia-woolf-and-the-hogarth-press/?ref=hyperallergic.com) c*ontinues at Charleston in Firle (East Sussex, BN8 6LL) through September 6\. The show has been co-curated by Ben Majchrowicz and Stephen Barkway.*