Virginia Woolf (Brief Lives)

de David Bradshaw

"Virginia Woolf's experimental fiction such as Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and The Waves (1931) earned her a position as one of the major authors of twentieth-century British and European fiction. She was also a prolific essayist, publishing hundreds of articles and reflective reviews; her longer essays, 'A Room of One's Own' (1929) and 'Three Guineas' (1938), stand as some of the most convinicing and influential feminist tracts ever written. However, he well-publicised struggle with mental illness, her fluid approach to sexuality and eventual suicide have all contributed to building up a mythology surrounding her life. Woolf's colourful circle of family and friends, The Bloomsburgy Group, consisted of leading writers, thinkers, artists and performers, Elizabeth Wright scours their correspondence, along with Woolf's diaries and memoir papers to illuminate the mind of a literary genius and explode some of the commonly held myths."