Abstract/Summary

Just over three miles apart, the apparent disjunction between Kensington and Bloomsbury has proved an important rupture in understandings of the literary culture of early C20. This chapter explores how the Woolfs and the Hogarth Press sought to work beyond such cultural and geographical confines. From its early days, the Woolfs worked with large commercial printers to increase the scale and reach of their productions and despite their reputation for the avant-garde they also published many works that were to become “bestsellers.” Through their friendship with Hugh Walpole, they worked hard to engage with a wider section of readers through their support for the Book Society Limited, the first mail-order book club in Britain. Engaging with Melba Cuddy-Keane’s useful theorisation of a “democratic highbrow” in the period, this chapter examines what this might mean in terms of the Woolfs’ own Hogarth Press publications.