To read the letters of Dorothy Richardson is to become exhausted, vicariously, by the 'non-stop housewifery' which consumed her days. From 1918 until 1939, Richardson and her husband moved three times a year. Every autumn, they settled in a primitive rented cottage in Cornwall, where Richardson was responsible for shopping, cooking and cleaning, as well as for her own and her husband's sizeable correspondence. In the spring, Richardson would pack up their belongings and they would move to nearby lodgings for a few months, only to pack up again, this time to live in London for the summer, where Richardson's domestic duties lessened but her social ones increased, as she and her husband met friends and associates they were unable to see the rest of the year. Then in the autumn, Richardson prepared their London rooms for winter tenants, and they returned to Cornwall.

LRB 21 September 1995 | PDF Download