"Life is not a series of gig-lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi--transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end," writes Virginia Woolf in her essay on "Modern Fiction" (1919) in an endeavor to explain her own unique writing style. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Virginia Woolf emerged as one of the most prominent Modernist writers in English literature. Her works, published by the Hogarth Press, were far-reaching. They included pieces ranging from historical and cultural studies to feminist and gender studies, postcolonial studies, genre novels, and studies with a multitude of other foci such as global reception and constructions of modernism. Yet like all great writers, Woolf had her critics. The most significant of these critics was Arnold Bennett, a bestselling novelist at the time. He was already a renowned and prolific author when Virginia Woolf published her first novel. Moreover, Bennett was also a well-respected political figure. In March, 1918, the British Minister of Information nominated Bennett to join the elite three-man British War Memorial Committee, an organization that recruited writers for the war effort.

Praise from such a prominent literary and political figure would have helped any new author. Woolf, the emerging novelist, did not have his approval. Instead of acknowledging his critiques, Woolf countered them with essays published in leading literary journals. The ensuing debate between Bennett and Woolf lasted for more than a decade. This website seeks to provide a comprehensive resource for the entire field of exchange between the two authors, using essays, reviews, journals, and personal letters to explore their clashing concepts of fiction and writing. This website also provides the subsequent critic response of their famous literary quarrel.