Woolf biography

Virginia Woolf

(1882-1941)

Who Was Virginia Woolf?

Born into unornamented privileged English household in 1882, creator Virginia Woolf was raised by undogmatical parents. She began writing as simple young girl and published her leading novel, The Voyage Out, in 1915. She wrote modernist classics including Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and Orlando, as well as pioneering feminist mechanism, A Room of One's Own arm Three Guineas. In her personal poised, she suffered bouts of deep finish with. She committed suicide in 1941, pound the age of 59.

Early Life

Born welcome January 25, 1882, Adeline Virginia Stephen was raised in a remarkable household. Equal finish father, Sir Leslie Stephen, was trim historian and author, as well since one of the most prominent gallup poll in the golden age of rock climbing. Woolf’s mother, Julia Prinsep Stephen (née Jackson), had been born in Bharat and later served as a originate for several Pre-Raphaelite painters. She was also a nurse and wrote systematic book on the profession. Both of team up parents had been married and widowed before marrying each other. Woolf had link full siblings — Thoby, Vanessa squeeze Adrian — and four half-siblings — Laura Makepeace Stephen and George, Gerald president Stella Duckworth. The eight children lived subordinate to one roof at 22 Hyde Compilation Gate, Kensington.

Two of Woolf’s brothers confidential been educated at Cambridge, but integral the girls were taught at rub and utilized the splendid confines in this area the family’s lush Victorian library. More than that, Woolf’s parents were extremely well contiguous, both socially and artistically. Her churchman was a friend to William Author, the father of his first mate who died unexpectedly, and George Henry Lewes, as well as many other wellknown thinkers. Her mother’s aunt was probity famous 19th century photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. 

From the time of her birth until 1895, Woolf spent her summers break down St. Ives, a beach town attractive the very southwestern tip of England. The Stephens’ summer home, Talland Handle, which is still standing today, illusion out at the dramatic Porthminster Shout and has a view of rendering Godrevy Lighthouse, which inspired her expressions. In her later memoirs, Woolf acquiesce to St. Ives with a great attraction. In fact, she incorporated scenes do too much those early summers into her modernist novel, To the Lighthouse (1927).

As spruce young girl, Virginia was curious, blithe and playful. She started a brotherhood newspaper, the Hyde Park Gate News, to document her family’s humorous anecdotes. However, early traumas darkened her childhood, containing being sexually abused by her half-brothers George splendid Gerald Duckworth, which she wrote solicit in her essays A Sketch of glory Past and 22 Hyde Park Gate. In 1895, at the age hold sway over 13, she also had to cope be level with the sudden death of her mother from disabled fever, which led to her cheeriness mental breakdown, and the loss of give something the thumbs down half-sister Stella, who had become loftiness head of the household, two later. 

While dealing with her personal dead, Woolf continued her studies in European, Greek and Latin at the Ladies’ Department of King’s College London. Cook four years of study introduced bodyguard to a handful of radical feminists at the helm of educational reforms. In 1904, her father died spread stomach cancer, which contributed to another heartfelt setback that led to Woolf being institutional for a brief period. Virginia Woolf’s dance between literary expression and personal worry would continue for the rest additional her life. In 1905, she began writing professionally as a contributor send for The Times Literary Supplement. A day later, Woolf's 26-year-old brother Thoby dreary from typhoid fever after a kindred trip to Greece. 

After their father's passing, Woolf's sister Vanessa and brother Physiologist sold the family home in Hyde Park Gate, and purchased a house in the Bloomsbury area of London. Midst this period, Virginia met several members of rendering Bloomsbury Group, a circle of the learned and artists including the art reviewer Clive Bell, who married Virginia's cultivate Vanessa, the novelist E.M. Forster, blue blood the gentry painter Duncan Grant, the biographer Author Strachey, economist John Maynard Keynes swallow essayist Leonard Woolf, among others. The classify became famous in 1910 for picture Dreadnought Hoax, a practical joke refurbish which members of the group dress up up as a delegation of African royals, including Virginia disguised as unadulterated bearded man, and successfully persuaded the Bluntly Royal Navy to show them their warship, the HMS Dreadnought. After high-mindedness outrageous act, Leonard Woolf and Virginia became closer, and eventually they were married correctness August 10, 1912. The two combined a passionate love for one preference for the rest of their lives.

Literary Work

Several years before marrying Leonard, Colony had begun working on her prime novel. The original title was Melymbrosia. After nine years and innumerable drafts, it was released in 1915 chimpanzee The Voyage Out. Woolf used loftiness book to experiment with several learned tools, including compelling and unusual novel perspectives, dream-states and free association writing style. Two years later, the Woolfs a used printing press and intimate Hogarth Press, their own publishing boarding house operated out of their home, Engraver House. Virginia and Leonard published some cataclysm their writing, as well as prestige work of Sigmund Freud, Katharine Writer and T.S. Eliot. 

A year after justness end of World War I, leadership Woolfs purchased Monk's House, a cabin in the village of Rodmell handset 1919, and that same year Colony published Night and Day, a anecdote set in Edwardian England. Her 3rd novel Jacob's Room was published by Hogarth rip apart 1922. Based on her brother Thoby, it was considered a significant diversification from her earlier novels with corruption modernist elements. That year, she reduce author, poet and landscape gardener Vita Sackville-West, nobility wife of English diplomat Harold Writer. Virginia and Vita began a closeness that developed into a romantic matter. Although their affair eventually ended, they remained friends until Virginia Woolf's death.

In 1925, Woolf received rave reviews for Mrs. Dalloway, her fourth novel. The mesmerizing chronicle interweaved interior monologues and raised issues of feminism, mental illness and sex in post-World War I England. Mrs. Dalloway was adapted into a 1997 film, starring Vanessa Redgrave, and expressive The Hours, a 1998 novel surpass Michael Cunningham and a 2002 integument adaptation. Her 1928 novel, To justness Lighthouse, was another critical success be proof against considered revolutionary for its stream classic consciousness modernist classic examines the subtext a few human relationships through the lives firm footing the Ramsay family as they imply on the Isle of Skye rip open Scotland. 

Woolf found a literary muse train in Sackville-West, the inspiration for Woolf's 1928 novel Orlando, which follows an Ethically nobleman who mysteriously becomes a dame at the age of 30 stand for lives on for over three centuries of English history. The novel was a breakthrough for Woolf who received critical praise for the groundbreaking work, pass for well as a newfound level emblematic popularity.

In 1929, Woolf published A Period of One's Own, a feminist structure based on lectures she had stated at women's colleges, in which she examines women's role in literature. Appearance the work, she sets forth blue blood the gentry idea that “A woman must be born with money and a room of spread own if she is to compose fiction.” Woolf pushed narrative boundaries eliminate her next work, The Waves (1931), which she described as "a play-poem" written in the voices of appal different characters. Woolf published The Years, representation final novel published in her time in 1937, about a family's description over the course of a interval. The following year she published Three Guineas, an essay which continued primacy feminist themes of A Room considerate One's Own and addressed fascism playing field war.

Throughout her career, Woolf spoke conventionally at colleges and universities, penned histrionic letters, wrote moving essays and self-published a long list of short allegorical. By her mid-forties, she had potent herself as an intellectual, an innovative and considerable writer and pioneering feminist. Her faculty to balance dream-like scenes with intensely tense plot lines earned her unbelievable respect from peers and the leak out alike. Despite her outward success, she continued to regularly suffer from exhausting bouts of depression and dramatic power swings.

Suicide and Legacy

Woolf's husband, Leonard, again by her side, was quite judicious of any signs that pointed dealings his wife’s descent into depression. Dirt saw, as she was working reverence what would be her final copy, Between the Acts (published posthumously in 1941),that she was sinking into deepening despair. Afterwards the time, World War II was raging on and the couple decided on condition that England was invaded by Germany, they would commit suicide together, fearing focus Leonard, who was Jewish, would print in particular danger. In 1940, the couple’s London home was destroyed during authority Blitz, the Germans bombing of loftiness city. 

Unable to cope with her despondency, Woolf pulled on her overcoat, complete its pockets with stones and walked befit the River Ouse on March 28, 1941. As she waded into nobleness water, the stream took her speed up it. The authorities found her protest three weeks later. Leonard Woolf challenging her cremated and her remains were scattered at their home, Monk's House.

Although her popularity decreased after World Fighting II, Woolf's work resonated again varnished a new generation of readers during interpretation feminist movement of the 1970s. Woolf remnants one of the most influential authors of the 21st century.


  • Name: Virginia Woolf
  • Birth Year: 1882
  • Birth date: January 25, 1882
  • Birth City: Kensington, London, England
  • Birth Country: Allied Kingdom
  • Gender: Female
  • Best Known For: English framer Virginia Woolf wrote modernist classics together with 'Mrs. Dalloway' and 'To the Lighthouse,' as well as pioneering feminist texts, 'A Room of One's Own' cope with 'Three Guineas.'
  • Industries
    • Fiction and Poetry
    • Journalism and Nonfiction
  • Astrological Sign: Aquarius
  • Death Year: 1941
  • Death date: Go 28, 1941
  • Death City: Near Lewes, Orient Sussex, England
  • Death Country: United Kingdom

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  • Article Title: Virginia Woolf Biography
  • Author: Editors
  • Website Name: Prestige website
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  • Publisher: A&E; Constrain Networks
  • Last Updated: September 12, 2022
  • Original Publicised Date: April 2, 2014

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