The Modern Novel

Biography

Virginia Woolf was born Virginia Stephen in 1882 in London. Her father, Sir Leslie Stephen, was a well-known critic and editor. Virginia was educated at home. When her father died (when she was sixteen), the family moved to Bloomsbury, to the house that was to be the original meeting place of the Bloomsbury Group. When her brother, Thoby, died two years later, she suffered a mental breakdown. She continued to suffered from mental illness for the rest of her life.

In 1912, she married Leonard Woolf and wrote her first novel, The Voyage Out though, because of another breakdown, this was not published till 1915. The couple decided to start up their own publishing firm – the Hogarth Press – whose first publication was Two Stories, a story by each of them. As well as Virginia’s own works, they published works by writers such as Katherine Mansfield and T S Eliot.

Virginia continued to have considerable critical success as a writer. She soon established herself as one of the pre-eminent modernists and one of the leading English novelists. Her impressionist style, her use of stream-of-consciousness techniques and her feminist viewpoint were all considered innovative and moved the English novel away from the realistic Victorian approach. She also established herself as a leading critic, particularly as a feminist critic. She became a reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement in 1905.

Despite her literary success and the fact that she was the centre of the thriving Bloomsbury Group, she continued to have mental breakdowns and she was worried that she would go insane and become a burden to her husband. In 1941, she loaded her pockets with stones and walked into the river and drowned herself.

Books about Virginia Woolf

Quentin Bell: Virginia Woolf: A Biography
Edward Bishop: A Virginia Woolf Chronology
Lyndall Gordon: Virginia Woolf: A Writer’s Life
James King: Virginia Woolf
Mitchell Leaska: Granite and Rainbow: The Hidden Life of Virginia Woolf
Hermione Lee: Virginia Woolf
Nigel Nicolson: Virginia Woolf
Roger Poole: The Unknown Virginia Woolf
Panthea Reid: Art and Affection: Life of Virginia Woolf

Other links

Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf:”Mind” And”Matter” On The Plane Of A Literary Controversy (article by Wyndham Lewis)
Featured Author: Virginia Woolf
Library of Leonard and Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf: The quiet revolutionary
A Quaker Influence on Modern English Literature: Caroline Stephen and her niece, Virginia Woolf
Cause for Fear: Sexual Apprehension in the Writings of Virginia Woolf
The Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain
International Virginia Woolf Society
Blogging Woolf (Focusing on Virginia Woolf and her circle, past and present)
World Wide Woolf (Virginia Woolf as a cultural icon)

Places associated with Woolf

Six places to find Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Set
Monk’s House
Monk’s House
Writers’ rooms: Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) and Hogarth House
Virginia Woolf’s Holiday Homes in the Country
Charleston

Online texts of her works

Texts of her works
Online Books by Virginia Woolf