For the casual reader, this essay suffers from Virginia Woolf’s elliptical style and page-long paragraphs. In addition, its premise is no longer true; we now have a great deal of writing about illness. In Reconstructing Illness: Studies in Pathography, Anne Hawkins describes and discusses a new genre that she calls pathography--first person accounts of one’s illness--which has become extraordinarily popular in the last 30 years. In fact, an interesting use of "On Being Ill" would be to juxtapose its claim that in 1930 the body was not taken seriously as a literary theme, with our contemporary obsession with the body.

In her pages that describe the world-of-the-recumbent, Woolf teaches eloquently the concept that the ill actually live in a different world from the well. The existential experience of illness is also described superbly by Eric Cassell in Chapter 1 of "The Healer’s Art" (New York, J. B. Lippincott, 1976).

Editor’s note: A stand-alone publication of this essay has been produced by Paris Press (see alternate source below) and features the cover art painted by Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf’s sister, for the 1930 Hogarth Press edition. In addition, the Paris Press publication has a useful introduction (22 pp.) by the biographer, Hermione Lee. Lee provides background for the essay, placing it in the context of Woolf’s other writing and personal relationships. (The essay itself is 25 short pages long.)