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English Literature Author: Virginia Woolf
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by Danell Jones
The College Board
Billings, Montana
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More About Virginia Woolf...
Virginia Woolf
1882-1941
British
Introduction
One of the most innovative writers of the century, Woolf was a novelist, essayist, and critic. In her most famous novels, To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Dalloway, and The Waves, she makes brilliant use of the literary technique known as stream-of-consciousness to explore and represent her characters' thoughts and emotions. She was particularly interested in women's issues. Her plea for women's independence of means and thought in A Room Of One's Own continues to charm and challenge readers today. She and her husband Leonard Woolf were part of a radical, vibrant group of intellectuals known as the Bloomsbury group. Leading members included E.M. Forster, Clive Bell, John Maynard Keyes, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Lytton Strachey, and Roger Fry. The Woolfs also began the Hogarth Press and were first British publishers of T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," and the first English translations of Sigmund Freud's groundbreaking psychoanalytic works. Like many of the Bloomsbury group, Woolf was also a pacifist. Her famous anti-war essay Three Guineas argues that militarism is the result of patriarchal values that foster social inequality. Woolf's prodigious output of novels, reviews, essays, letters, and diary entries seems to belie the terrible bouts of mental illness she suffered periodically throughout her life. In the fear that she was once again facing a complete mental breakdown, she committed suicide in 1941.
Major Works
- Jacob's Room (1921)
- Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
- The Common Reader (1925)
- To the Lighthouse (1927)
- Orlando (1928)
- A Room of One's Own (1929)
- The Waves (1931)
- Three Guineas (1938)
- Between the Acts (1941)
Chronology
1882
Adeline Virginia Stephen born in London on January 25.
1895
Julia Stephen, Woolf's mother, dies; Leslie Stephen, Woolf's father, goes into deep mourning; Virginia has a severe mental breakdown. Household run by Julia's daughter from a previous marriage, Stella Duckworth.
1897
Stella Duckworth marries, becomes pregnant, and dies.
1904-05
Death of Leslie Stephen in 1904. Virginia has a second mental breakdown, and tries to commit suicide by jumping out of a window. She moves with her siblings -- Vanessa, Thoby, and Adrian -- to Bloomsbury. Virginia publishes first essays and teaches at an evening college for working and women.
1906
The four Stephens travel to Greece, where Vanessa and Thoby become ill; Thoby dies of typhoid fever at age of 26.
1907
Vanessa Stephen marries critic Clive Bell; Virginia and Adrian share a house.
1912-15
Virginia Stephen marries Leonard Woolf on August 10, 1912. She has third mental breakdown, which lasts for three. She completes The Voyage Out which finally published in 1915 by her half-brother, Gerald Duckworth.
1917
The Woolfs buy a secondhand printing press and set up the Hogarth Press in the basement.
1922
VW publishes Jacob's Room.
1925
VW publishes Mrs. Dalloway and The Common Reader, a collection of essays.
1927
VW publishes To the Lighthouse.
1928
VW publishes Orlando, a fictional "biography" of Woolf's friend (and possibly, lover), Vita Sackville-West.
1929
VW publishes A Room of One's Own.
1931
VW publishes The Waves.
1932
VW publishes The Common Reader: Second Series.
1933
VW publishes Flush, a "biography" of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's spaniel.
1935
VW produces Freshwater, A Comedy in Three Acts.
1937
VW publishes The Years. Her nephew Julian Bell is killed in the Spanish Civil War.
1938
VW publishes pacifist, feminist essay, Three Guineas.
1939
War declared on September 3; the Woolfs prepare to commit suicide if England invaded.
1940
VW publishes Roger Fry: A Biography. Completes draft of Between the Acts. Her home is bombed during the Battle of Britain.
1941
At the onset of another mental breakdown, which she fears will be permanent, Virginia Woolf drowns herself in the River Ouse on March 28.
Danell Jones is the Special Projects Editor for K-12 Professional Development, and is also the Editor for English Literature and Language. She is a teacher, writer, scholar, and editor with close to twenty years of experience in education. She currently teaches creative writing and literature courses in Billings, Montana.
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