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Virginia Woolf Biography & Facts

Adeline Virginia Woolf (; née Stephen; 25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941) was an English writer. She is considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors. She pioneered the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born into an affluent household in South Kensington, London. She was the seventh child of Julia Prinsep Jackson and Leslie Stephen in a blended family of eight that included the modernist painter Vanessa Bell. She was home-schooled in English classics and Victorian literature from a young age. From 1897 to 1901, she attended the Ladies' Department of King's College London. There, she studied classics and history, coming into contact with early reformers of women's higher education and the women's rights movement. After her father's death in 1904, the Stephen family moved from Kensington to the more bohemian Bloomsbury, where, in conjunction with the brothers' intellectual friends, they formed the artistic and literary Bloomsbury Group. In 1912, she married Leonard Woolf, and in 1917, the couple founded the Hogarth Press, which published much of her work. They rented a home in Sussex and permanently settled there in 1940. Woolf began writing professionally in 1900. During the inter-war period, Woolf was an important part of London's literary and artistic society. In 1915, she published her first novel, The Voyage Out, through her half-brother's publishing house, Gerald Duckworth and Company. Her best-known works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928). She is also known for her essays, such as A Room of One's Own (1929). Woolf became one of the central subjects of the 1970s movement of feminist criticism. Her works, translated into more than 50 languages, have attracted attention and widespread commentary for inspiring feminism. A large body of writing is dedicated to her life and work. She has been the subject of plays, novels, and films. Woolf is commemorated by statues, societies dedicated to her work, and a building at the University of London. Life Family origin Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen on 25 January 1882 at 22 Hyde Park Gate in South Kensington, London, to Julia (née Jackson) and Sir Leslie Stephen. Her father was a writer, historian, essayist, biographer, and mountaineer. She was named after her mother's eldest sister Adeline Maria Jackson and her mother's aunt Virginia Pattle. Because of her aunt Adeline's death the year before Adeline Virginia's birth, the family never used her first name. The Jacksons were a well-educated, literary and artistic proconsular middle-class family. Their side of the family contained Julia Margaret Cameron, a celebrated photographer, and Lady Henry Somerset, a campaigner for women's rights. In 1867 Julia had married her first husband Herbert Duckworth, a barrister, but within three years she was left a widow with three infant children: George, Stella, and Gerald. Woolf's father, Leslie Stephen, was born in 1832 in South Kensington to Sir James and Lady Jane Catherine Stephen (née Venn), daughter of John Venn, rector of Clapham. The Venns were the centre of the evangelical Clapham Sect. Sir James Stephen was the under secretary at the Colonial Office, and with another Clapham member, William Wilberforce, was responsible for the passage of the Slavery Abolition Bill in 1833. As a family of educators, lawyers, and writers, the Stephens represented the elite intellectual aristocracy. A graduate and fellow of Cambridge University, Leslie renounced his faith and position to move to London where he became a notable man of letters. He was described as a "gaunt figure with a ragged red brown beard...a formidable man." In 1867 he wed Harriet Marian ("Minny") Thackeray, youngest daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray. They had a daughter, Laura, but Harriet subsequently died in childbirth in 1875. Laura was born prematurely at 30 weeks, and was developmentally disabled, eventually being institutionalised. The widowed Julia Duckworth knew Leslie Stephen through her friendship with Minny's elder sister Anne (Anny) Isabella Ritchie and had taken interest in his agnostic writings. Both were preoccupied with mourning, and they formed a close friendship and intense correspondence. Leslie proposed to Julia in 1877, and they were married on 26 March, 1878. Julia was 32 and Leslie was 46. They had four children together: Vanessa, Thoby, Virginia, and Adrian. 22 Hyde Park Gate (1882–1904) 1882–1895 Virginia Woolf was born at 22 Hyde Park Gate and lived there until her father's death in 1904. She was, as she describes it, "born into a large connection, born not of rich parents, but of well-to-do parents, born into a very communicative, literate, letter writing, visiting, articulate, late nineteenth century world." It was a prominent family consisting of Virginia's two half brothers and a half sister (the Duckworths, from her mother's first marriage), another half sister, Laura (who lived with the family until she was institutionalised in 1891), and her three full siblings. The house was described as dimly lit, crowded with furniture and paintings. Within it, the younger Stephens made a close-knit group. Their outdoor activities comprised walks and play in nearby Kensington Gardens, and sailing their boats on the Round Pond. While indoors, activity revolved around their lessons. Leslie Stephen's eminence as an editor, critic, and biographer, and his connection to William Thackeray, meant his children were raised in an environment filled with the influences of a Victorian literary society. Henry James, George Henry Lewes, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, Edward Burne-Jones, and Virginia's honorary godfather, James Russell Lowell, were among the visitors to the house. Virginia showed an early affinity for writing. Although both parents disapproved of formal education for females, writing was considered a respectable profession for women. Later, she would describe this as "ever since I was a little creature, scribbling a story in the manner of Hawthorne on the green plush sofa in the drawing room at St. Ives while the grown-ups dined." By the age of five, she was writing letters. It was her fascination with books that formed the strongest bond between her and her father. For her tenth birthday, she received an ink-stand, a blotter, drawing book, and a box of writing implements. In February 1891, with her sister Vanessa, Woolf began the Hyde Park Gate News, chronicling life and events within the Stephen family, and modelled on the popular magazine Tit-Bits. Virginia would run the Hyde Park Gate News until 1895, the time of her mother's death. The Stephen sisters used photography to supplement their insights. Vanessa Bell's 1892 portrait of her sister and parents in the Library at Talland House (see image) was one of the family's favourites and was written about lovingly in Leslie Stephen's memoir. In 1897 Virginia began.... Discover the Virginia Woolf popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Virginia Woolf books.