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Virginia Woolf

English modernist writer (1882-1941) · United Kingdom · Writers · Died at 59

Virginia Woolf is read about 5,835 times a day, in 121 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to 15 October 2026

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She bent the novel inward, made it track thought itself - not what people said or did, but the flicker and flow underneath. That formal break, plus the essay arguing a woman needs money and a room to write, locked her into the canon and the arguments around it.

WritersWriter / AuthorFictionStand UpLiteratureUnited KingdomEurope20th Century

A life in dates

2026The anniversary of their death, on 28 March.28 March 20263.0×The anniversary of their birth, on 25 January.25 January 2026, 3.0 times the usual readers on 25 January 2026See the moment1985Moments of BeingBook published after her death, non-fiction work by Virginia Woolf1944A Haunted House and Other Short StoriesBook published after her deathJanuary 1944, short story collection by Virginia Woolf1941Died28 March 1941“I bought the blue paper book [Ulysses], & read it here one summer I think with spasms of wonder, of discovery, & then again with long lapses of immense boredom.”In their words15 January 1941Diary entry January 15, 1941.

1939“The Reverend C. L. Dodgson had no life. He passed through the world so lightly that he left no print. He melted so passively into Oxford that he is invisible.”In their wordsEssay "Lewis Carroll" (1939); reprinted in The Moment, and Other Essays (1948)

“For some reason, we know not what, his childhood was sharply severed. It lodged in him whole and entire. He could not disperse it.”In their wordsEssay "Lewis Carroll" (1939)

1937“Margaret Ll. Davies writes that Janet is dying and will I write on her for The Times - a curious thought, rather: as if it mattered who wrote, or not.”In their words11 July 1937Entry of 11 July 1937, in A Writer's Diary (1953)

1919“No one can escape the power of language, let alone those of English birth brought up from childhood, as Mrs.”In their wordsCh. 24

1915“At this Helen laughed outright. "Nonsense," she said. "You're not a Christian.”In their wordsThe Voyage Out (1915), Ch. XI

1882Born25 January 1882

Also in Deutsch

Photos 8

Virginia Woolf 1927Virginia Woolf 1927Brighton & Hove 887 T677 KPUBrighton & Hove 887 T677 KPUCangioli, Roberto al Bologna Pride 2012 - 1 - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto, 9 giugno 2012Cangioli, Roberto al Bologna Pride 2012 - 1 - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto, 9 giugno 2012Gruppo Milk Milano al Bologna Pride 2012 - 4 - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto, 9 giugno 2012Gruppo Milk Milano al Bologna Pride 2012 - 4 - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto, 9 giugno 2012Medalha Virginia WoolfMedalha Virginia WoolfMural Feminista de FuenlabradaMural Feminista de FuenlabradaMural parcial feminista fachada 1 de FuenlabradaMural parcial feminista fachada 1 de FuenlabradaPlaca de la calle de Zaragoza dedicada a Virginia WoolfPlaca de la calle de Zaragoza dedicada a Virginia Woolf

In their own words 10

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Virginia Woolf
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10 statements, newest first

  1. Dearest, I want to tell you that you have given me complete happiness. No one could have done more than you have done. Please believe that.

    Mar 28, 1941, Letter to Leonard Woolf (28 March 1941), from The Virginia Woolf Reader (1984) edited by Mitchell A. Leaska, p. 369,, Own words

  2. I bought the blue paper book [Ulysses], & read it here one summer I think with spasms of wonder, of discovery, & then again with long lapses of immense boredom.

    Jan 15, 1941, Diary entry January 15, 1941., Own words

  3. Here I come to one of the memoir writer's difficulties - one of the reasons why, though I read so many, so many are failures. They leave out the person to whom things happened.

    1939, "A Sketch of the Past" (written 1939, published posthumously), Own words

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Born in 1882 into a crowded, intellectual South Kensington household - her father Leslie Stephen, her sister the painter Vanessa Bell - Woolf was taught at home in classics and Victorian literature, then studied at King's College London. After her father's death in 1904 she moved to Bloomsbury, became a founding member of the group that took the district's name, and married Leonard Woolf in 1912. Together they started the Hogarth Press in 1917, which published her own work. She rose through the interwar years with Mrs Dalloway in 1925, To the Lighthouse in 1927, Orlando in 1928, and the feminist essay A Room of One's Own in 1929. By 1940 she and Leonard had settled in Sussex; she drowned herself in the River Ouse in March 1941. Her work was reclaimed by feminist critics in the 1970s and has since been translated into more than fifty languages.

Country
United Kingdom
Category
Writers
Type
Writer / Author
Status
deceased
Dates
Lived 1882 to 1941 · aged 59

Writers from the United Kingdom 6

J. K. Rowling85.2Rudyard Kipling82.8Nigella Lawson85.4George Bernard Shaw82.5James Joyce85.8H. G. Wells82.3

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