Virginia Woolf (British Library Writers' Lives Series)

English novelist and essayist Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) remains one of the most fascinating and enigmatic writers of this century. The daughter of Leslie Stephen, editor of Oxford's own Dictionary of National Biography, she was educated privately and married critic and journalist Leonard Woolf. Together they founded the Hogarth Press and were at the center of the Bloomsbury circle, which included Lytton Strachey, Clive Bell, Roger Fry, Vita Sackville-West, and many other notable intellectuals, all of whom appear frequently in the narrative. Webb deftly puts into this context Woolf's large and varied literary output--diaries, letters, journalism, essays, short stories, and novels--as well as her constant battles with mental illness that culminated in her suicide by drowning. Woolf's writing, especially Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, A Room of One's Own, and her diaries, are favorites of high school students and adults of all ages.

About the series:
The British Library is in a unique position when it comes to biographical research, especially concerning British authors. This revered institution boasts the world's largest collection of original manuscripts, as well as an outstanding collection of letters, personal diaries, first editions, and other literary treasures. The titles in this series take full advantage of this vast source of documentary evidence by illustrating each of these lively writers' biographies with state-of-the-art facsimiles of pertinent documents and reproductions of art from the period. Penned by expert biographers, each of these books also contains an index, further reading list, and a chronology of the writer's life.

Ruth Webb, University of London.