Brief Lives: Virginia
Woolf
Elizabeth Wright
- 2011 is the 70th
anniversary of Virginia WoolfÕs death by suicide
- Published simultaneously
with Virginia WoolfÕs collection of essays entitled On Fiction
- Perfect companion to previous Woolf titles
on the Hesperus list
Elizabeth WrightÕs new biography sheds light on the life and writing
of one of the foundational authors of twentieth-century British and
European fiction and explodes some of the commonly held myths.
Virginia Woolf is considered to be one of the key Modernist writers
of the early twentieth century, through her experimental fiction such as Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and The Waves (1931), but she is also
known as a prolific essayist, publishing hundreds of articles and
reflective reviews including two notable volumes entitled The Common Reader (1925 and 1932).
Her longer essays, ÔA Room of OneÕs OwnÕ (1929) and ÔThree GuineasÕ (1938),
stand as some of the most convincing and influential feminist tracts ever
written.
Her colourful circle of family and friends, known as The Bloomsbury
Group, consisted of leading writers, thinkers, artists and performers and
Elizabeth Wright scours their letters, along with WoolfÕs diaries and
memoir papers, to illuminate the mind of a literary genius.