Reanna Brooks

reanna brooks
DPhil Candidate
St Hilda's College

Provisional Thesis Title: Beyond the Manuscript: Exploring the Materiality and Craftsmanship in Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press

Supervisor: Professor Rebecca Beasley, Professor Michael Whitworth

 

My research examines the material properties of publications produced by the Hogarth Press between 1917 and 1921, investigating how their physical forms illuminate Virginia Woolf’s engagement with book production, craft, and the broader cultural significance of publishing. By situating the Hogarth Press within the fine printing tradition and the early twentieth-century literary marketplace, this study analyzes how Woolf’s hands-on involvement in printing and bookbinding shaped both the identity of the Press and her approach to literary production. Drawing on theories of analytical bibliography, cultural production, and the history of reading, my thesis explores the Press’s editorial and design decisions, marketing strategies, and Woolf’s evolving understanding of books as material objects. By connecting these historical practices to contemporary artistic interventions, this study highlights the enduring influence of Woolf’s material experimentation on modern book arts.

 

 

Conference Presentations

  • “Cutting through Aesthetics: Craft, Materiality, and the Language of Making in Virginia Woolf’s Works.” 52nd Annual Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture, University of Louisville & Online, February 2025.
  • “Echoes of Childhood: The Hogarth Press, the Hyde Park Gate News, and Virginia Woolf’s Material Legacy.” British Association for Modernist Studies (BAMS) International Conference, University of Leeds & Online, June 2024.
  • “The Legacy of Woolf: Reading Woolf in the Digital Age.” New Works in Modernist Studies Conference 13, University of Liverpool & Online, December 2023.

Selected Publications

  • “Virginia Woolf: Bookbinder, Typesetter, Crafter.” Virginia Woolf Bulletin, Issue No. 77 (September 2024).
  • “Echoes of Childhood: The Hogarth Press, the Hyde Park Gate News, and Virginia Woolf’s Material Legacy.” The Modernist Review, Issue 53 (August 2024).
  • “‘My Fingers are like Cauliflowers’: The Material Productions of the Hogarth Press.” Genealogies of Modernity, June 2024.

Forthcoming Publications

  • “A Note on the Hogarth Press (1917–1921).” Notes and Queries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025).
  • “Handmade and Reimagined: Virginia Woolf’s Bookbinding as Embodied Art and Feminist Practice.” In Embodied Knowledge and Making Texts: A Handbook, ed. Georgina Wilson and Helen Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2026).
  • “Materiality and Modernism: Virginia Woolf’s Bookbinding Practices and Digital Archival Engagement Through MAPP.” In special cluster Out of the Archives, Feminist Modernist Studies, ed. Urmila Seshagiri (2026).

Teaching

I teach at the University of Oxford through access and outreach programmes and facilitate interdisciplinary undergraduate discussions. My main teaching areas include modernism, materialism, post-modernism, and contemporary fiction.

I am currently a DPhil Facilitator for the Vice-Chancellor’s Colloquium (2024-2025), leading undergraduate discussions on climate change. I have also designed and delivered academic enrichment sessions for Key Stage 4 and 5 students through Balliol College’s Discovery and FLOREAT Access Programmes.

 

 

You can connect with me on Twitter, @123REANNA

Research Interests: history of the book, bibliography, materiality, print cultures, modernism