Virginia Woolf: novelist, essayist (1927, from her collection)
Women and Adversity:
Virginia Woolf
Novelist, Feminist, Lesbian
June is Pride Month
Virginia Woolf was a brilliant English novelist and essayist, known for her stream of consciousness technique. When she was five, she loved books and wrote letters. When she was 10, she began a family newspaper, which she wrote until 1895 when her mother died. She says the loss of her mother caused her first nervous breakdown, but she had other issues before then.
She experienced depression and mental instability throughout her life. She revealed that her half-brothers sexually abused her, one started the abuse when she was six, the other when she was 13. Her writing concentrated on intimate relationships between women, and she personally had several intimate relationships with women, especially with Vita Sackville-West. She called herself a “sapphist,” which refers to Greek poet Sappho, who had intimate relations with women. Woolf’s husband, Leonard, accepted her involvement with women. Unfortunately, her depression led to her suicide in 1941.
The background to how her name was in American playwright Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is available at https://zazzorama.com/why-called-afraid-virginia-woolf.
Bio
- 1882 – Born Adeline Virginia Stephen in London on January 25
- 1912 – Married Leonard Woolf
- 1917 – The couple founded the Hogarth Press, a publishing company they ran from their home. It published her works and others in her group.
Education
- Informally educated at home
- 1897 – Received private tutoring in Classical Greek and Latin
- 1897-1902 – Attended lectures at the King’s College Ladies’ Department
- 1900 – The Midnight Society: an intellectual group at Trinity College. Woolf’s brother introduced her to it. Leonard Woolf was a member.
Career and writings
- 1905 – The Bloomsbury Group formed. It was comprised of intellectuals and artists, who questioned Victorian customs and gender roles. The group determined the direction of arts and literature in the early 20th
- 1915 – The Voyage Out, Woolf’s first published novel
- 1922 – Jacob’s Room
- 1925 – Dalloway
- 1927 – To the Lighthouse
- 1928 – Orlando
- 1929 – “A Room of One’s Own” – an essay in which Woolf states a woman must have a room and money if she is to write.
- 1931 – The Waves
On March 28, 1941, Woolf filled her pockets with stones and walked into the River Ouse. Her body was found three weeks later.
More information
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Virginia-Woolf https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1642&context=gvr
https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk/news/afterlives-vw#:~:text=She%20was%2059%2C%20an%20unusual,the%20River%20Ouse%20in%20Sussex.
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