Then the solution became clear. They would each write a story, print the pair as a paper-covered pamphlet and sell by subscription to their circle of friends. As if writing and printing weren’t enough, the Woolfs now had to get down to the business of selling. Their first published work was in fact an advertisement, which Virginia sent to Lady Ottoline Morrell in May 1917: ‘We find we have only 50 friends in the world – and most of them stingy. Could you think of any generous people – they need not be very generous – whose names you would send me?’

The advertisement, an amateur endeavour, in which even the price is wrong (the pamphlet was actually sold for 1s 6d), nonetheless showed their ambition: the words ‘Publication No. 1’ also appeared prominently on the title page of Two Stories, as it was finally named. The two short stories were Leonard’s ‘Three Jews’ and Virginia’s ‘The Mark on the Wall’.

Orders started to arrive, and Virginia was busy setting Leonard’s story; ‘I haven’t produced mine yet,’ she told her sister. ‘It was a casual mark of the utmost significance,’ observes Virginia’s biographer, Hermione Lee:

For Leonard, the story was a signpost pointing down a road he would not take as a fiction writer, as a Jewish writer. But for Virginia it ‘marked’, as her title suggests, a completely new direction, the beginning of a new form and a new kind of writing.

The language of the title page was also unusual, being ‘written and printed by Virginia Woolf and L.S. Woolf’. The composition of sentences, via the creative flow of fiction and their setting in individual Foundry letters, were inextricably linked. As Lee remarks, ‘the new machine had created the possibility for the new story’.

By July, the texts were finally printed. Dora Carrington travelled to Hogarth House to deliver four commissioned woodcuts in person. Virginia thanked her: ‘Will you let us know what your expenses (including fare, and one halfpenny newspaper) come to, so that your pittance may be doled out to you.’ The Woolfs had tremendous difficulties printing the woodcuts – the blocks were too high and left smudged surrounds – but the images lent a lively, bold Omega style to the pamphlet.

The red and white Japanese paper covers were similarly arresting. The thread for binding, also a vivid red, was stab-stitched and knotted by Virginia. The red knot continues to be a powerful draw for those seeking a physical connection with her.

The print run of 134 copies (which nonetheless required over 4000 pulls on the printer on Leonard’s part) sold out quickly, even when they raised the price of the last few copies to 2s. Receipts came to £10 8s with a net profit of £7 1s once costs of paper and ink and Carrington’s fee of 15s were deducted. Leonard in particular took great pride and delight in the healthy figures. Almost immediately the Woolfs were looking for a larger printing machine, and an apprentice.