Virginias Husband Leonard

It was quite some time I go that I read up on it, but I am fairly certain that they never did move back to London.

At the time doctors were very into the idea of a "rest cure," so that had some bearing on why they moved to the country. The distractions and excitement of life in London seemed to bring on Virginia's bad spells or make them worse and contributed to the sleeplessness that was also driving her mad.

But also in Richmond Leonard set up Hogarth Press at their home so they could self-publish her books. Until then she was published by her stepbrother Gerald Duckworth's firm. He seemed to be kind of an obnoxious character in some ways and in fact had sexually molested her when she was 6 years old and he was in his late teens. She didn't like being published and edited and censored by him, so living in the country gave her more freedom and allowed her to do the kind of stream of consciousness writing she always wanted to experiment with. She could even design her own book jackets and have her sister Vanessa do the artwork for them.

I don't really think that Leonard was oppressing her unduly, even if he could be somewhat controlling, and that famous beautiful letter she wrote to him near the end of it all says that he had been "entirely patient" with her and that any happiness she was able to have was because of him.