Virginia Woolf

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Thousands of readers over three or four generations have known that Virginia Woolf was—by a beadle—denied access to the library of a great university. They may have known, too, that she was a leading intellect of the twentieth century. If they are feminist readers they will know that she thought . . . back through her mothers and also sideways through her sisters and that she contributed more than any other in the twentieth century to the recovery of women's writing.
Marcus, Jane. “Introduction”. New Feminist Essays on Virginia Woolf, edited by Jane Marcus, Macmillan, 1981, p. i - xx.
xiv
Educated in her father's library and in a far more than usually demanding school of life, she radically altered the course not only of the English tradition but also of the several traditions of literature in English.
Froula, Christine. Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Avant-Garde. Columbia University Press, 2005.
2
She wrote prodigiously—nine published novels, as well as stories, essays (including two crucial books on feminism, its relation to education and to war), diaries, letters, biographies (both serious and burlesque), and criticism. As a literary journalist in a wide range of forums, she addressed the major social issues of her time in more than a million words.
Woolf, Virginia. “Introduction; Editorial Note”. The Essays of Virginia Woolf, edited by Andrew McNeillie, Hogarth Press, 1994, pp. vols. 1 - 4: various pages.
ix
She left a richly documented life in words, inventing a modern fiction, theorising modernity, writing the woman into the picture. She built this outstandingly influential work, which has had its impact on both writing and life, on her personal experience, and her fictions emerge to a striking degree from her life, her gender, and her moment in history. In a sketch of her career written to Ethel Smyth she said that a short story called An Unwritten Novelwas the great discovery . . . . That—again in one second—showed me how I could embody all my deposit of experience in a shape that fitted it.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne TrautmannEditors , Hogarth Press, 1980.
4: 231
Well-known black and white photograph of Virginia Stephen (later Virginia Woolf), 1902.  She is seen in profile, with her hair loosely caught back in a bun
"Virginia Woolf, 1902" Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Charles_Beresford_-_Virginia_Woolf_in_1902_-_Restoration.jpg. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license. This work is in the public domain.
Photograph of Virginia Woolf with hand on face wearing a fur stole. This is a picture from one of Virginia Woolf's own photo albums at Monk's House which were acquired at an auction at Sotheby's in 1982 (cf. Maggie Humm, Snapshots of Bloomsbury: The Private Lives of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, p. 187), gifted in 1983 by Frederick R. Koch to the Harvard Theater Collection, Houghton Libray, Harvard University, and afterwards scanned and uploaded by the library.
"Virginia Woolf" Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Virginia_Woolf_1927.jpg. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license. This work is in the public domain.

Milestones

25 January 1882
Adeline Virginia Stephen, later VW , was born at 22 Hyde Park Gate, Kensington, London, the third of the four children of Sir Leslie Stephen and Julia Prinsep Stephen .
Lee, Hermione. Virginia Woolf. Chatto and Windus, 1996.
104, 35
February 1891
Virginia Stephen (later VW ) and her siblings began to produce the Hyde Park Gate News for their family.
Lee, Hermione. Virginia Woolf. Chatto and Windus, 1996.
108
Bell, Quentin. Virginia Woolf: A Biography. Hogarth Press, 1972.
1: 28-9
14 May 1925
VW published her novel Mrs. Dalloway with her own Hogarth Press . Two thousand copies were printed. The American edition was published the same day by Harcourt, Brace and Company .
Bell, Quentin. Virginia Woolf: A Biography. Hogarth Press, 1972.
2: 237
Kirkpatrick, Brownlee Jean. A Bibliography of Virginia Woolf. Clarendon Press, 1980.
25
20 October 1928
VW delivered one of her two papers, Women and Fiction (later revised to become A Room of One's Own), at Newnham College , Cambridge.
Woolf, Virginia. The Diary of Virginia Woolf. Bell, Anne Olivier and Andrew McNeillieEditors , Hogarth Press, 1984.
3: 199
26 October 1928
VW travelled to Cambridge with Vita Sackville-West to deliver a second Women and Fiction paper at Girton College .
Woolf, Virginia. The Diary of Virginia Woolf. Bell, Anne Olivier and Andrew McNeillieEditors , Hogarth Press, 1984.
3: 199
March 1929
VW published Women and Fiction (from her two lectures given at the women's colleges at Cambridge ) in Forum (New York).
Hussey, Mark. Virginia Woolf A to Z. Facts on File, 1995.
368
24 October 1929
VW published A Room of One's Own simultaneously with the Hogarth Press and with Harcourt Brace in America.
Woolf, Virginia. The Diary of Virginia Woolf. Bell, Anne Olivier and Andrew McNeillieEditors , Hogarth Press, 1984.
3: 227n11
22 November 1929
The first of two excerpts from VW 's A Room of One's Own appeared in Time and Tide.
Bishop, Edward. A Virginia Woolf Chronology. Macmillan, 1989.
125
28 March 1941
VW wrote what may have been her second suicide letter to her husband Leonard , then went out and drowned herself in the River Ouse near Rodmell.
Her first suicide note may have been written on 18 March, but was not discovered until the 28th.
Lee, Hermione. Virginia Woolf. Chatto and Windus, 1996.
759-60

Biography

Her first Christian name, never used, was given in memory of her mother's sister, who died shortly before Virginia's birth.
Lee, Hermione. Virginia Woolf. Chatto and Windus, 1996.
99
Ginia was her earliest family nickname. She later gave herself many more, using different names with different people. Many were animal names: Sparrow, Wallaby, Billy, Ape, Goat, Mandril, and Marmoset. They were elastic, generative: Goat developed into Goatus Esq., or Capra. At fifteen she named herself Miss Jan. Biographer Hermione Lee sees this as her first construction of herself as an author.
Lee, Hermione. Virginia Woolf. Chatto and Windus, 1996.
111-12

Birth and Background