Two Stories (1917)

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) and Leonard Woolf (1880–1969)

Two Stories

Richmond, London: Hogarth Press, 1917

Two Stories features “Three Jews” by Leonard and “The Mark on the Wall” by Virginia, her first published work of fiction. Her story presents two first-person, stream-of-consciousness responses to the eponymous mark: one a woman’s, the other a man’s. The slender book features four unsigned woodcuts commissioned from Dora Carrington, who designed illustrations and covers for many Hogarth Press books.

When the Woolfs announced the forthcoming book in the spring, orders began pouring in, mostly from strangers: “old ladies and poets from the North,” as she reported to Vanessa Bell. It took them two months to print and bind the edition of 150 copies, of which they sold 134 so quickly that they raised the price (to two shillings) on the few remaining. They turned a profit of £7. 1s. on the edition.