Woolf was raised in relatively affluent circumstances and seemed to most people who met her to have the character of a proper "lady." When she chaired monthly meetings of the Richmond Branch of the Woman's Cooperative Guild—an organization for working-class women—she felt sympathetic to but estranged from the "quiet and phlegmatic" people who attended the lectures she planned, while admiring their "good sense." In an essay in 1930, she remarked "It is not from the ranks of working-class women that the next great poet or novelist will be drawn from," although she also expressed her hope that in the future, people like herself would not meet working-class women as "mistresses or customers" and that "friendship and sympathy would supervene." Her attitudes toward royalty were similarly mixed. Stephen Spender mentions how she was "fascinated" by royalty and Clive Bell remembered her bragging about getting...