VIRGINIA WOOLF’S NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO

a. Mrs Swanwick … £42,000: Mrs Swanwick subsequently wrote to Woolf, pointing out that she had misquoted her: it was not the militant WSPU but the constitutionalist National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (run by Mrs Fawcett rather than Mrs Pankhurst) that had the income of £42,000.

b. Contagious Diseases Act: this legislation forced prostitutes to submit to medical examinations for venereal disease; it provoked heated controversy and was eventually repealed.

c. St Paul … On ne saurait l’affirmer: ‘Is it absolutely impossible, then, that Paul had contracted a greater intimacy with this sister? One could not be certain of it.’