VIRGINIA WOOLF SPEAKING

On April 29, 1937, Virginia Woolf  broadcast a talk entitled Craftsmanship in a B.B.C. series called Words Fail Me. The tape of this broadcast is the only such recording of her voice. In his Biography, Quentin observes

... it seems worth noting, for the benefit of posterity, that this record is a very poor one. Her voice is deprived of depth and resonance; it seems altogether too fast and too flat; it is barely recognizable. Her speaking voice was in fact beautiful - though not so beautiful as Vanessa's - and it is sad that it should not have been immortalized in a more satisfactory manner.

Apparently, only part of the original tape survives.  Following is only a very small part (12 seconds!) of that part. Nevertheless, it is provided here to allow some sense of what Virginia Woolf actually sounded like.

In the selection,  speaking about "words," Woolf says:

... purity or their impurity discussed. If you start a  Society for Pure English they will show their resentment by starting another for impure English. Hence the unnatural violence of much modern speech,

 

To hear Virginia Woolf speaking, click here.

NOTE:  Craftsmanship was published in the Listener in May 5, 1937 and was reprinted in 1942 in The Death of the Moth, and Other Essays.