On Not Knowing Greek (in 1923)

One hundred years ago, as a diversion from writing her novel Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) set about describing her complex, intimate relationship with Ancient Greek. Her essay would be published two years later in the collection The Common Reader (Hogarth, London, 1925, pp.39–59), under the playfully ambiguous title “On not knowing Greek”.