Dec 20

Dec 20 Virginia Woolf: Monk's House

Translation of the Garden

In Virginia Woolf's Garden, Caroline Zoob describes what it was like for her and her husband to live as caretakers of Monk's House and its gardens as tenants of the National Trust. The book is a record—through photographs and written accounts—of a larger attempt to translate footnotes, letters, and diary entries into a physical space: the garden.

Flypage from Caroline Zoob's Virginia Woolf's Garden (2013) — Flypage from Caroline Zoob's *Virginia Woolf's Garden* (2013)

The Zoob couple used these artifacts to reconstruct what the garden may have looked like under the Woolfs' care ("L is doing the rhododendrons" [Virginia's last diary entry]). But of course, there is plenty left open for interpretation.

Zoob goes one step further into the translation process by then depicting the garden and grounds of the Woolf country home into embroidered tapestries.

In Bloom: The Space Today

See what the space looks like today (although now out of the care of the Zoob couple). Featured below are the grounds, the Woolf living room, and Virginia's solitary bedroom.

Frozen in Time: Monk's House Photo Albums

For additional images of Woolf, friends, and family at Monk House, visit Harvard University's Houghton Library | Online Archives (links to albums provided below). Six of Virginia Woolf's photograph albums were gifted to Harvard University by Frederick R. Koch in 1983. Copyright restrictions apply.