Woolf and Tolkien: The Significance of Literary Illustration

British essayist and novelist Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was a notable literary presence in the Modernist literary movement of the early 20th century. In her 1919 short story Kew Gardens, Woolf’s texts are accompanied by her sister and acclaimed artist Vanessa Bell’s illustrations. Bell was a critically acclaimed painter of the time, and was often compared to male artists of her time, such as to the painter William Blake by critic Diane Gillespie in her 1988 essay “The Sister’s Arts”. The importance of illustration to Woolf’s writing can be compared to J.R.R. Tolkien’s self-illustrated 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit. There are some notable similarities between Tolkien and Woolf’s motivation for including illustrations in their works. First, both Tolkien and Bell’s simple ink drawings provide a subtle guidance to the stories without compromising the imagination of the reader. Second, both sets of illustrations provide a distinctive accompaniment to the tone and intentions of the works. Woolf’s friend and colleague Roger Fry addresses the significance of literary illustration in his 1926 “Transformations: Critical and Speculative Essays on Art”.