VIRGINIA WOOLF

Virginia Woolf, the English author, feminist, essayist, publisher and critic, was one of the founders of modernist movement. Adeline Virginia Stephen was born on 25th January 1882 in London, as the daughter of Leslie Stephen, a manof letters and Julia Jackson Duckworth, a member of Duckworth publishing

family. Her youth was a traumatic one shadowed by a series of emotional shocks, with the early deaths of her mother and brother, a history of sexual abuse andthe beginnings of a depressive mental illness that plagued her intermittently throughout her life. Following the death of her father in 1904, Woolf, along with her sister and two brothers moved to the house in Bloomsbury where they befriended Leonard Woolf, Clive Bell, Lytton Strachey and Maynard Keynes. This was the nucleus of Bloomsbury group. Later in 1912 she married Leonard Woolf, the political theorist, writer and critic. Woolf’s books were published by Hogarth

Press, which she founded with her husband. During the Nazi invasion, Woolf and Leonard made provisions to kill themselves. After the final attack of menta  illness, Woolf loaded her pockets full of stones and drowned herself in the river Ouse on March 28, 1941. On her note to her husband she wrote “I have a feeling I shall go mad. I cannot go on longer in these terrible times. I hear voices and cannot concentrate on my work. I have fought against it but cannot fight any longer. I owe all my happiness to you but cannot go on and spoil your life.” The Voyage Out (1915) was Woolf’s first book. Her other works include Jacob’s Room (1922), Mrs. Dalloway (1925)To the Light House (1927), The Waves (1931) Orlando: A Biography (1928), A Room of One’s Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938)