become an influential press, publishing works by Katherine Mansfield, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Vita Sackville- West, among others. Woolf wrote prolifically and in many forms: from extensive letters, diary entries, essays, and literary reviews to short stories and novels. She authored some of the most influential novels of the early twentieth century, including Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and The Waves (1931). Her superb ear for language and her narrative conception of experience as “moments of being” earned her both renown among her contemporaries and critical and financial success.
Increasing depression and the impending atrocities of World War II proved too much for Woolf’s sensitive nature. After completing her final novel, Between the Acts, amid bomb warnings and country-wide anxiety, Woolf penned a short suicide note to Leonard, filled her pockets with stones, and drowned herself in the River Ouse on March 28, 1941.
THE WORLD OF VIRGINIA WOOLF AND NIGHT AND DAY
1882- 1894 Adeline Virginia Stephen is born in London on January 25, 1882, the third of the four children of author and critic Leslie Stephen and Julia Duckworth Stephen. Her siblings are Vanessa (born in 1876), Thoby (1880), and Adrian (1883), and four half brothers and sisters from her parents’ previous marriages. Virginia is educated at home, where she benefits from private Greek lessons and unfettered access to her father’s extensive library. Scenes and impressions from childhood summers spent at Talland House, the seaside family home in Cornwall, will appear in her novels. Irish writer James Joyce is also born in 1882.1895 Julia Duckworth Stephen dies from influenza, an event that devastates thirteen-year-old Virginia; she suffers the first in a series of breakdowns that will plague her throughout her life. Leslie is unable to recover from his wife’s death, and the atmosphere in the Stephen household becomes somber and melancholy. Virginia will remain haunted by memories of this time.1897 She begins her numerous, detailed diary entries, intimate and profound observations that over the course of her life will fill volumes. Her half sister, Stella, who had looked after the Stephen children since 1895, dies.1901 Queen Victoria dies.1902 Leslie Stephen is knighted.1904 Sir Leslie Stephen dies. Virginia suffers a second breakdown and attempts suicide. During her convalescence she begins writing for publication; her first published essay—about Haworth Parsonage, the Bronte family home—appears in
the Guardian. She begins reviewing for the Times Literary Supplement. American novelist Henry James publishes The Golden Bowl, which Virginia reviews. The Stephen children move out of Hyde Park to a house in the Bloomsbury district of London. Thoby Stephen begins holding informal gatherings of writers and artists from Cambridge University; those who attend come to be known collectively as the Bloomsbury group. Virginia relishes these literary gatherings and forms lifetime friendships with, among others, Lytton Strachey, John Maynard Keynes, Roger Fry, and E. M. Forster, as well as her future husband, Leonard Woolf, and her future brother-in-law, Clive Bell.1906 Virginia, Thoby, Vanessa, and Adrian travel to Greece, where Thoby contracts typhoid fever; he dies shortly after their return to London. Virginia is greatly saddened by the loss of her beloved brother, whom she will recall in her novels The Voyage Out, Jacob’s Room, and The Waves. 1907 Vanessa marries art critic Clive Bell; Virginia and Adrian move to 29 Fitzroy Square. Virginia begins work on her first novel, Melymbrosia, which will later be published under the title The Voyage Out. Letters to her brother-in-law during this time outline her hopes for her first novel.1908 Julian Bell is born to Vanessa and Clive Bell.1909 Virginia and writer Lytton Strachey are engaged for a short time. She volunteers her time in support of the women’s suffrage- movement.1910 One of Virginia’s friends, painter and critic Roger Fry, organizes and presents the first exhibition of “post-impressionist” art.1912 Virginia marries Leonard Woolf.1913 The Voyage Out is set to be published by the Duckworth Press, owned by Virginia’s half brother Gerald Duckworth. However, Virginia has a severe mental breakdown that delays publication; anxious about the quality of the writing, she continues to revise the text. French novelist Marcel Proust publishes Du cote de chez Swann (Swann’s Way), the first volume of his masterpiece A la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past).
1914 World War I begins. Vanessa leaves Clive Bell for Scottish painter Duncan Grant.1915 The Voyage Out is published. Virginia, still recovering from her breakdown, attempts unsuccessfully to write her first diary entries since her marriage.1917 Virginia and Leonard found the Hogarth Press, which they run from their home. They publish Two Stories, with one by Virginia and the other by Leonard. The small press will go on to publish works by Sigmund Freud, T. S. Eliot, Katherine Mansfield, and James Joyce. Virginia takes on much of the arduous process of printing the books. She begins writing in her diary again and will do so until her death.1918 World War I ends on November 11.1919 Virginia Woolf’s short story “Kew Gardens” is published by the Hogarth Press, while her novel Night and Day is brought out by the Duckworth Press. Her manifesto on modern writing, “Modern Novels,” appears in the Times Literary Supplement. She and Leonard buy Monks House in Rodmell, a small village on the River Ouse in southern England.1921 Hogarth publishes a collection of Virginia’s short stories, Monday or Tuesday. 1922 The Hogarth Press publishes Virginia’s novel Jacob’s Room and also begins to release works by Freud. Virginia meets Vita Sackville-West; the two will become lovers in 1925.1923 British writer Katherine Mansfield dies.1925 Hogarth publishes Virginia’s novel Mrs. Dalloway, whose characters first appear in less sympathetic form in The Voyage Out. Her volume of essays The Common Reader appears.1927 To the Lighthouse, arguably Virginia Woolf’s masterpiece, is published; characters in the novel are based on her own family.1928 Orlando: A Biography, a novel inspired by Sackville-West, is published.1929 The influential feminist book A Room of One’s Own appears. Two of its most important themes are financial independence for women and the need for a private space in which to work.1931 Virginia’s novel The Waves is published.
1932 Lytton Strachey dies. Virginia publishes her essay “A Letter to a Young Poet” and The Common Reader: Second Series. 1933 Flush: A Biography, a fictional life of English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s dog, is published.1934 Roger Fry dies.1935 Leonard and Virginia visit Nazi Germany. Her play Fresh water, a comedy based on the life of her great aunt, is performed in Vanessa Bell’s studio.1937 Virginia Woolf’s novel The Years is published.1938 Three Guineas, her second feminist work, is published.1939 On September 3 Britain and France declare war on Germany. Living mostly in Rodmell, Leonard and Virginia make a plan to commit suicide in the event of an invasion.1940 Virginia publishes Roger Fry’s biography. Amid air raids and the threat of invasion, she finishes her eighth novel, Between the Acts. Her chronic depression and the strain of war propel her on a downward spiral.1941 On March 28, after writing a note to her husband, Virginia Woolf fills her pockets with stones and drowns herself in the River Ouse. Between the Acts is published posthumously.
