Virginia Woolf Biography

Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941)

Viriginia Woolf was born in London 1882. A novelist and essayist who gained international reputation for her novels.

Virginia was born into a family with a strong literary background. As a child she displayed great sensitivity and delicacy. As a result she was often schooled at home between her London home and the Cornish coast where she developed a love of the sea which is prevalent throughout her life. In her teens she was able to converse with many great literary and cultural figures such as Ruskin, Hardy, Morley and Gosse. This inspired a love for Literature, especially of the Elizabethan age. Her parents died when she was young; aged 22 she moved into a house in the Bloomsbury area of London with her two brothers. This formed a nucleus of the informal Bloomsbury group of cultural and literary figures, which was later to include person such as John Maynard Keynes,

During this time she had an active correspondance with suffragetes such as Mrs Fawcett, Emily Pankhurst and others. Although she never took part in the activities of the suffragettes she wrote her clear support for the aims of female emancipation.

In 1912, she married the literary critic Leonard Woolf and went to live in Richmond, Surrey.

Her first novel was published in 1915 - The Voyage Out. However, it was in 1922 with the publication of Jacob's Room that she became renowned for an author of creative talents. She broke away from the ordered structure of English novels and created novels of subtle poetry and great movement and intensity. Her novels often considered themes of passing time and she displayed great powers of observation.

She died in 1941