"The Duchess and the Jeweller" (1938) is a

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

. Woolf, being an advocate of addressing the "stream of consciousness," shows the thoughts and actions of a greedy jeweller; Woolf makes a thematic point that corrupt people do corrupt actions for purely selfish motives (and often without regret). It is among Woolf's most controversial stories among critics because of the implicit characterization of the jeweller as Jewish.

Background

Virginia Woolf conceived of "The Duchess and the Jeweller" in 1932 alongside several other stories including "The Shooting Party," as part of a group of caricatures and

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...

s of the upper classes. Scholars have suggested that an argument between Woolf's lover

Vita Sackville-West Victoria Mary, Lady Nicolson, CH (née Sackville-West; 9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962), usually known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author and garden designer. Sackville-West was a successful novelist, poet and journalist, as wel ...

and West's mother, in which Vita's mother accused her of selling her pearls and replacing them with counterfeits, inspired the pearls central to the plot. Early versions of the story explicitly identified the character of the jeweller Oliver as Jewish. Woolf removed those references and changed his name during revisions at the request of agent Jacques Chambrun, who expressed concerns about "widespread racial prejudice in America." Many scholars, however, have argued that these undertones remain in the jeweller's characterization, sometimes characterizing them as anti-Semitic stereotypes. The story was first published in the American and British editions of ''Harper's Bazaar'' magazine in April 1938. It was subsequently published posthumously in 1944 in the collection '' A Haunted House and Other Short Stories''.

Plot summary

Oliver Bacon, a poor boy in the streets of London, has become the richest jeweller in England. As a young man, he sold stolen dogs to wealthy women and marketed cheap watches at a higher price. On a wall in his private room hangs a picture of his late mother. He frequently talks to her and reminisces, once chuckling at his past endeavors. One day, Oliver enters into his private robin shop room, barely acknowledging his underlings, and awaits the arrival of the Duchess. When she arrives, he has her wait. In his room, with yellow gloves, he opens barred windows to get some air. Later, Oliver opens six steel safes, each containing endless riches of jewels. The Duchess and the Jeweller are described as "... friends, yet enemies; he was master, she was mistress; each cheated the other, each needed the other, each feared the other..." On this particular day, the Duchess comes to Oliver to sell ten pearls, as she has lost substantial money to gambling. Mr. Bacon is skeptical of the pearls' authenticity, but the Duchess manipulates him into buying them for twenty thousand pounds. When the Duchess invites him to an event that includes a cast of royalty and her daughter Diana, Oliver is persuaded to write a cheque . In the end, the pearls are found to be fakes, and Oliver looks at his mother's portrait, questioning his actions. However, what Oliver truly bought was not actually the pearls: it was Diana.

References

1938 short stories Short stories by Virginia Woolf Works originally published in Harper's Bazaar {{1930s-story-stub