Adeline Virginia Woolf (née Stephen) was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century. During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group.
Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
Born into a privileged English household in 1882, author Virginia Woolf was raised by free-thinking parents. She began writing as a young girl and published her first novel, The Voyage Out, in 1915. She wrote modernist classics, as well as pioneering feminist works, A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas.
In her personal life, she suffered bouts of deep depression. She committed suicide in 1941, at the age of 59.
Throughout her career, Woolf spoke regularly at colleges and universities, penned dramatic letters, wrote moving essays and self-published a long list of short stories.
By her mid-forties, she had established herself as an intellectual, an innovative and influential writer and pioneering feminist. Her ability to balance dream-like scenes with deeply tense plot lines earned her incredible respect from peers and the public alike.
The writer was often accused of anti-Semitism. Her story "The Duchess and the Jeweler" (1938) was so profound in its hateful portrayal of Jews that Harper's Bazaar asked her to change it before publication.
Despite her outward success, she continued to suffer regularly from debilitating bouts of depression and severe mood swings.
Virginia Woolf still remains one of the most influential authors of the 21st century.
