So What? Who's Interested In Virginia Woolf?

So who's interested in Virginia Woolf? Loads of people, and not just myself. Virginia Woolf's influence far exceeds her lifetime, stretching to every corner of 21st century pop culture. As recently as a few years ago Nicole Kidman donned a fake nose for the sake of Virginia Woolf in "The Hours", and not just for her own personal gratification but because she'd made millions doing it. There's an audience out there waiting to spend their hard earned money to experience her legacy and her life. Virginia Woolf has surpassed her fame among literary buffs and critics and has become a cult figure for the masses. As Judith Allen put it in the Virginia Woolf Miscellany,

"For at least the last twenty years, Virginia Woolf’s works have been finding their way to theaters, movie screens, musicals, television (from “Masterpiece Theatre” to “MTV”), recordings, and of, course, to performance pieces at Virginia Woolf conferences. Woolf’s play, "Freshwater", first performed for her Bloomsbury friends in 1935, has enjoyed a steady stream of new productions, including the memorable 1983 New York production…Joining productions of "Freshwater", Woolf’s novels, letters, essays, and diaries have been transformed—sometimes in combination—into performance pieces or various media: "Mrs. Dalloway", an opera; "The Waves", a musical; "Orlando" and "A Room of One’s Own", staged drama and film; and "To the Lighthouse", a film for television. Along with these productions, there have been readings, recordings of readings, and the rock lyrics of several groups such as the Indigo Girls’ song, “Virginia Woolf”".

So aside from her formidable literary legacy in print, her works and life's story live on in the media from the silver screen to your mother's made for TV movies, and even here on the internet.