Figure 1.--Here we see Virginia Woolf and her younger brother Adrian Stephen playing cricket about 1887.

Virginia Woolf was an author, but is probably best known as a feminist and literary critic. She drew on noted English female authors, especially Jane Austen and Emily and Charlotte Bronte, to examine women and their challenges as artists. Her best knowm work was "A Room of One's Own" (1929). She struggled with bi-polar disease. And as a passionate pacifist had to struggle with what the consequences of psacifism would mean for her Jewish huband when it seemed likely that the NAZIs would invade Britain (1940). She commited suiside (1941).

Parents

Virginia as one might expect came from a family with litersary inerestsd. She was the daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen (1832-1904). , literary critic and first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. His first wife, daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray, Harriet Marion (b.1840) died in 1875. Virginia’s mother was his second wife, Julia Prinsep Jackson Duckworth (1846-1895) who inspired the character Mrs. Ramsay in To The Lighthouse (1927).

Siblings

Virginia had two brothers. Her older brother was Thoby (1880-1906) and her younger brother was Adrian (1883-1948). She was sandwiched between them, but they were all farly close in age. Adrian becane a noted psychoanalyst. She was especially close to her older sister Vanessa ‘Nessa’ (1876-1961). Vanessa pursued painting and married art critic Clive Bell. Virginis also had four half-brothers and -sisters: Laura Makepeace Stephen (1870-1945), and George (1868-1934), Gerald (1870-1937), and Stella (1869-1897). Duckworth founded Duckworth and Co. Publishing.

Childhhod

Virginia Stephen was born in London (1882).

School

Books

She drew on noted English female authors, especially Jane Austen and Emily and Charlotte Bronte, to examine women and their challenges as artists. Her best knowm work was "A Room of One's Own" (1929). DShe was an innvsative auhor, using stram of coinciouness as an organizing then in her novels. Major thees in her writing were gender issues, class hierarchy and the consequences of war.

Bi-polar Disease

She struggled with bi-polar disease. She was a prolific writer, but bi-polar didease meant that she was inactive for exteded periods in which was was not only unable to write, but even focus well-enough to even read.

World War II

Wolfe was a passionate pacifist. She wrote, "Therefore if you insist upon fighting to protect me, or “our” country, let it be understood, soberly and rationally between us, that you are fighting to gratify a sex instinct which I cannot share; to procure benefits which I have not shared and probably will not share; but not to gratify my instincts, or to protect either myself or my country. “For,” the outsider will say, “in fact, as a woman, I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.” [Wolfe, Three Guineas (1931)] When World War II broke out, the Woolfs were living at their country retreat, ‘Monk’s House’ near the village of Rodmell in Lewes, Sussex. After the dall of France, a German invasion seemed imminent. This was frigtening in itself, but Leonard was Jewish. They made a suicide pact to prevent falling into German hands. Their London home was destroyed in the Blitz (940). Pacifism and anti-war feeling were a major reasonwhy Hitler and the NAZIs were able to achieve such success. And thus as a committed pacifist, she had to struggle with what the consequences of pacifism would mean for her Jewish huband when it seemed likely that the NAZIs would invade Britain (1940).

Suiside

Wolf took issue with the idea that suiside was an act of cowardice. She commited suiside (1941)

Created: 8:14 AM 12/18/2009
Last updated: 8:14 AM 12/18/2009