A Room of One's Own

This annotated edition of the landmark inquiry into the women's role in society by one of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers, Virginia Woolf's classic A Room of One's Own features an introduction by English and Women's Studies professor Susan Gubar, perfect for critical analysis in classrooms and beyond.

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf imagines that Shakespeare had a sister: a sister equal to Shakespeare in talent, equal in genius, but whose legacy is radically different. This imaginary woman never writes a word and dies by her own hand, her genius unexpressed. But if only she had found the means to create, urges Woolf, she would have reached the same heights as her immortal sibling.

In this foundational work of literary criticism, Virginia Woolf takes on the establishment, using her gift for language to dissect the structures of patriarchy and give a voice to those who have none.

VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882–1941) was one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century. An admired literary critic, she authored many essays, letters, journals, and short stories in addition to her groundbreaking novels, including Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, and Orlando.

SUSAN GUBAR is Distinguished Professor of English and Women's Studies at Indiana University. A recipient of the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Book Critics Circle, she is the coauthor of The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination and No Man's Land with Sandra M. Gilbert.