"The Widow and the Parrot"

Yesterday's discussion in class about the mother and child relationships explored in Woolf’s writings and the clip from The Hours reminded me that I read somewhere when I was doing some general research on Woolf, that she had written a children’s story once. After some brief internet browsing, I found this article that gives 7 examples of famous authors and their less-than-famous children’s books. Woolf’s story, titled “The Widow and The Parrot”, was written at request of her two nephews for submission to their family newspaper The Charleston Bulletin. Mentioned in another article about the book is Woolf’s nephews’ disappointment at the story she gave them. They were hoping for “something as funny, as subversive, and as frivolous as Virginia’s conversation”. Since she wrote “The Widow and the Parrot” in 1923, right in the middle of her writing career, I found it to be a good example of the importance she placed on her family. 

Pretty interesting to see these authors who we know for their great accomplishments in literature use writing in such a different way.