Animals are central to Woolf's life and writing–from the marmosets and the many dogs that she and Leonard kept as pets, to the plethora of animal names she uses as terms of endearment (dolphin for Vanessa and mongoose for Leonard, for example) as well as the animal names she uses not quite so kindly (most notoriously, “civet cat” to refer to her friend and rival, Katherine Mansfield). In Woolf's fiction literal animals take on a fantastical and metaphorical life, signifying far more than the simple animality of their real–life selves, and imaginary creatures similarly test boundaries of different kinds. Woolf's fictional menagerie has been variously considered as a means of challenging social norms and as revealing repressed desires and creating a space for unruly behavior. Her fictional animals also operate as vehicles for raising contentious and complex political issues.

Here I will explore “Lappin and Lapinova,” a story published in 1939 but first written “20 years ago or more” (D 5: 188) at Asheham (and so before 1919). This was one of the few stories Woolf published explicitly to make money but, as we know, Woolf's writing is “never simply one thing.” The story recounts the first few years of Rosalind's marriage to Ernest Thorburn, a relationship vitally sustained through their fantasy of themselves as Queen Lapinova (a hare) and King Lappin (a rabbit). With its fairy tale qualities and tantalising ambiguities, the story offers many possibilities for interpretation and I'll examine three aspects in detail. These are the colors white and gold, the rabbit/ hare fantasy world and the sand caster gift. Keeping in mind the two historical moments of probable composition and publication, I'll consider how these offer scope for interpreting this story in relation to Woolf 's experience as a writer, her perception of her work in relation to the literary market and her political perspective, especially in relation to war.

Comparing an undated typescript (held in the Berg Collection) with the version of the story published in Harper's Bazaar in 1939, there are only very slight variations.