The Persephone Readathon #3 Readalong Results

The book chosen (by ~54% of the vote) for the optional Persephone Readathon readalong is: Flush by Virginia Woolf.

You can read or download a free eBook version here.

Feel free to read at your own pace. Since there are six chapters, I’ll put up two discussion posts: one on Friday for chapters 1-3, and one later in the week for chapters 4-6. 

Keep scrolling to learn a little more about Flush.

 

Goodreads Synopsis:

This story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel, Flush, enchants right from the opening pages. Although Flush has adventures of his own with bullying dogs, horrid maids, and robbers, he also provides the reader with a glimpse into Browning’s life.

 

Persephone’s entry for Flush:

Every publisher’s list should have a book about a dog, and Flush is a delightful and unique classic by one of our greatest writers. A ‘biography’ of Elizabeth Barratt Browning’s spaniel (1840-54), its direct inspiration was a new edition, in 1930, of the Brownings’ love letters in which ‘the figure of their dog made me laugh so I couldn’t resist making him a Life.’ Rather to Virginia Woolf’s dismay, Flush was a great popular success. Yet it is a surprisingly feminist book: ‘Although ostensibly about the taming of a pedigree dog, Flush addresses the way society tames and classifies women,’ writes Sally Beauman.

 

“The endpaper we chose is a C19th marbled paper of the type that was then often used as endpapers. ‘I loved, too, the edition’s beautiful endpapers with the swirling Victorian designs in purple (the colour in which Virginia Woolf herself often wrote) that suggest the extremely ”bookish” nature of this work.'”

 

 It is Persephone Book #55, and clocks in at around 194 pages.

Here is some background information on Flush’s owner, the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning via the Poetry Foundation.

And you can find out more about the Persephone Readathon here.

Will you be joining in the readalong?