The family of Virginia Woolf have slammed plans to make a Barbie doll of the writer. 

The British writer’s great niece, Virginia Nicholson, 69, furiously disregarded the toy company, Mattel’s suggestion of creating a Barbie doll of her aunt, telling The Times it would be ‘over our dead body’. 

The American company first suggested ‘Woolf Barbie’ more than a decade ago, initially showing the family design plans for the writer doll.

Speaking at The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, Woolf’s great niece – a social historian –  condemned the proposal and said that she and the family were all against it.

Nicholson told the publication that there had initially been a lot of discussion, but that her cousin, the late Henrietta Garnett, vehemently condemned the doll and had taken one look at the initial sketches before declaring ‘over my dead body’.

She described the suggested doll as appearing as a ‘Laura Ashley milk maid with a sweet hair bun holding an accessory copy of Mrs Dalloway.’ 

The American toy company, Mattel, proposed suggestions of making a Barbie doll of the late feminist writer, Virginia Woolf (pictured)

Virginia Nicholson, the great niece of Virginia Woolf, pictured in 2008. She said the entire family were against proposals to make the writer into a Barbie

A sentiment which has been carried over my the remaining family members, who condemn Mattel’s plans for the English writer to be reincarnated in plastic.

Woolf isn’t the first influential name to have been immortalised by Mattel. Mariah Carey, Tina Turner, Laverne Cox, Claudia Schiffer and even Queen Camilla, have had Barbie dolls made in their honour.

The Prince and Princess of Wales have also proudly inspired their own Barbie duos, recreated from their wedding day in 2011. 

Mattel have looked for inspiration from famous faces across the world, including those who are deceased. Elvis and Priscilla Presley and Grace Kelly are among them.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells, Rosa Parks and Amelia Earhart, have also been reincarnated in Barbie for. 

However, Woolf’s family remain united in their stance against a Virginia Woolf Barbie doll.

The social historian and non-fiction writer, Nicholson, noted that the design wasn’t as ‘pneumatic’ as usual, but was nevertheless less than impressed with the plans for the plastic figurine.

According to Woolf’s niece, the only element the company had managed to get right was her turno blue eyes and long eyelashes.

Born Adeline Virginia Stephen on January 25, 1882 in Kensington, London, Woolf was a pioneer in women’s education and attended the Ladies’ Department of King’s College. 

The feminist author of some of the 20th century’s most influential books including Mrs Dalloway and To The Lighthouse.

She began writing professionally in 1900 and published her first novel The Voyage Out in 1915 through publishing house Hogarth Press, that she established with her husband Leonard Woolf. Hogarth Press also put out modernist classic The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot.

Nicholson described the suggested doll as appearing as a ‘Laura Ashley milk maid with a sweet hair bun holding an accessory copy of Mrs Dalloway’

Woolf isn’t the first influential name to have been immortalised by Mattel. Mariah Carey, Tina Turner, Laverne Cox, kayak marseille Claudia Schiffer and even Queen Camilla, have had Barbie dolls made in their honour

The Prince and Princess of Wales have also proudly inspired their own Barbie duos, recreated from their wedding day in 2011