Virginia Woolf and the Hogarth Press

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is perhaps best known as a novelist and essayist associated with the Bloomsbury Group, but she and her husband Leonard also operated a publishing house. The two established the Hogarth Press in 1917, starting out the operation on a small hand press in the dining room of their home Hogarth House in Richmond, England. The Woolfs began printing as a hobby but soon aspired to become commercial publishers in order to publish short works that existing commercial publishers would not publish. The Woolfs rejected the idea of fine printing, preferring a more utilitarian style of printing that was meant for use rather than book collecting.

Between 1917 and 1938, the year Virginia Woolf relinquished her interest in the Hogarth Press, the Woolfs handprinted thirty-five of 440 published works, outsourcing the rest to commercial printers. For the handprinted books, Virginia Woolf set the type while Leonard Woolf worked the press.

Women worked for the Hogarth Press in a variety of roles, including Barbara Hiles (press assistant, 1917-1918), Marjorie Thomson Joad (press assistant, 1923-1925), Mrs. “Ma” Carter (office manager, 1925-1930), Peggy Belsher (general secretary, 1928-1936), and Norah Nicholls (marketing agent, 1938-1940). Additionally, Dora Carrington contributed woodcut illustrations to the Hogarth Press’s first publication Two Stories, and Vanessa Bell frequently designed covers and book jackets.