Step into an infinite world of stories
Biographies
In February 1910, the young woman who would become Virginia Woolf played the most famous practical joke in British military history. Blackening her face and masquerading as an African prince, with friends she conned her way onto the Dreadnought, the Empire’s best battleship. The stunt made headlines around the world for weeks, embarrassed the Royal Navy, and provoked heated discussions in parliament. But who was the ‘girl prince’ unidentified in public debate at the time, and what was she doing there?
The Girl Prince intertwines three fascinating stories: a scandalous prank and its afterlife; Woolf’s ideas about race and empire; and the true Black experience in Britain, from real princes to Caribbean writers and South African activists. Woolf’s social circle was almost exclusively white, but Black lives edged and echoed hers within the rich fabric of national culture, including in response to the hoax. Using letters, diaries, reporting and newly discovered archives, Danell Jones describes an extraordinary chain of events, exploring how and why this future revolutionary novelist joined in a bigoted blackface prank, and probing what it tells us—about Woolf’s Britain and Woolf’s work.
This is a tantalisingly fresh take on an iconic writer and her deeply problematic stunt.
© 2023 Hurst Publishers (Ebook): 9781805260769
Release date
Ebook: 26 October 2023
Over 950 000 titles
Kids Mode (child safe environment)
Download books for offline access
Cancel anytime
For those who want to listen and read without limits.
1 account
Unlimited Access
Unlimited listening
Cancel anytime
For those who want to listen and read without limits.
1 account
Unlimited Access
Unlimited listening
Cancel anytime
For those who want to listen and read without limits.
1 account
Unlimited Access
Unlimited listening
Cancel anytime
For those who want to share stories with family and friends.
2-3 accounts
Unlimited Access
Unlimited listening
Cancel anytime
2 accounts
S$14.90 /monthEnglish
Singapore