THE WIDOW AND THE PARROT

by Virginia Woolf ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 1988

When Woolf's young nephews decided that it was a pity not to use their famous aunt as a contributor to their newspaper (though they ""didn't think much of her work,"" as Quentin Bell reports in an amusing Afterword), sire obliged with this story, which they published even though it was ""even worse than Kew Gardens""--it would have been too unkind to reject it. An elderly widow, Mrs. Gage, inherits a house and 3000 pounds on the death of a miserly, disagreeable brother. Borrowing the fare to travel from Yorkshire to Rodmell (where the Woolfs lived) to collect, she finds a shabby house, an old parrot, and no money. As she is returning from the lawyer's, the house burns; in the night, the parrot directs her to the money in the ruins, and she and the parrot return with it to Yorkshire, live long, and die simultaneously of old age. This is neither an extraordinary story nor extraordinary Woolf, but it is entertaining, and indubitably equipped with graceful, gently witty prose. The illustrator is Woolf's grandnephew; his watercolors are charmingly evocative of the Sussex countryside of 100 years ago, making good use of the somber tones in vogue with the painters in the Bloomsbury crowd and brightened by the deft use of light.

Pub Date: March 10, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1988

Categories: CHILDREN'S