Virginia Woolf was born in 1882 into a privileged English household with remarkable parents - her father was a historian and her mother served as a model for Pre-Raphaelite painters. She was educated at home by her father and explored writing from a young age. However, she was also traumatized by sexual abuse as a child and her mother's early death. Woolf studied languages at King's College London and became acquainted with the Bloomsbury Group, marrying writer Leonard Woolf in 1912. Her life was marked by a struggle between literary expression and personal suffering, and in 1941 facing the destruction of her home in the Blitz and the danger her Jewish husband faced from Nazis, Woolf died by suicide in

1. Virginia Woolf
(1882 - 1941)
Born into a privileged English household in 1882, a writer Virginia
Woolf was brought up by free-thinking parents. She was raised in a
remarkable household. Her father, Sir Leslie Stephen, was a historian and
author, and also one of the most prominent figures in the golden age of
mountaineering. Woolf’s mother, Julia Prinsep Stephen, had been born
in India and later served as a model for several Pre-Raphaelite painters.
Two of Woolf’s brothers had been educated at Cambridge, but all the
girls were taught at home and utilized the splendid confines of the
family’s lush Victorian library. Her father was a friend to William Thackeray and George Henry
Lewes, as well as many other noted thinkers. Her mother’s aunt was a famous 19th century
photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. For these reasons and more, Virginia Woolf was ideally
situated to appreciate and experiment with the art of writing. She started a family newspaper, the
Hyde Park Gate News, to document her family’s humorous anecdotes.
She had, however, been traumatized at the age of six when her half-brothers George and
Gerald Duckworth sexually abused her. This dark spot was only made deeper and more
permanent when her mother suddenly died at the age of 49. Despite her misery, Woolf managed
to take classes in German, Greek and Latin at the Ladies’ Department of King’s College London.
Her four years of study introduced her to a handful of radical feminists at the helm of educational
reforms. In 1904, her father died. Virginia Woolf’s dance between literary expression and personal
desolation would continue for the rest of her life.
Virginia became acquainted with several members of the Bloomsbury Group. Leonard
Woolf, a writer and a member of the group, took a fancy to Virginia. By 1912, she and Leonard
were married.
She was working on what would be her final manuscript (published posthumously),
Between the Acts, she was sinking into a bottomless pit. Leonard, who was Jewish, was certainly in
danger of being captured by the Nazis, and the couple’s London home had been destroyed during
the Blitz. These seemingly insurmountable facts motivated Woolf's decision to, on March 28,
1941, pull on her overcoat, walk out into the River Ouse and fill her pockets with stones. As she
waded into the water, the stream took her with it.
Although her popularity decreased after World War II, her stories rang true again for
readers during the feminist movement of the 1970s. Woolf remains one of the most well known
authors of the 21stcentury.