Virginia Woolf 2

• Through her brothers’ connections, Virginia became acquainted with several members of the Bloomsbury Group who were dedicated to the liberal discussion of politics and art.
• Virginia disguised herself as a bearded man to participate
• Met Leonard Woolf
• group included E.M. Forster and Lytton Strachey

The popularity of her writing waned a little after her death, but was revived with the new feminist movement in the 1970's.

• Before her death, Virginia published an extraordinary amount of groundbreaking material
• she was a renowned member of the Bloomsbury Group (as herself)
• leading writer of the modernist movement with her use of innovative literary techniques
• Instead of emphasizing plot and detailed descriptions of characters, her writing thoroughly explores the concepts of time, memory, and consciousness
• her plot is generated by the characters' inner lives and motives, not by the external world.

circle of intellectuals and artists became famous in 1910 for their Dreadnought hoax, a practical joke in which members of the group dressed up as a delegation of Ethiopian royals and successfully persuaded the English Royal Navy to show them their warship, the HMS Dreadnought.

Timeline of Career

Personal Timeline

1905 - Contributor to Times Literary Supplement

1910 - Bloomsbury Group

1915 - The Voyage Out

1917 - Hogarth Press

1919 - Monk's House

1925 - Mrs. Dalloway

1927 - To the Lighthouse

1928 - Orlando

1929 - A Room of One's Own

1931 - The Waves

1937 - The Years

1938 - Three Guineas

Jun 1941 - Between the Acts

1953 - A Writer's Diary

• Death of Julia Prinsep Stephen
• family is plunged into mourning
• Virginia has her first major depressive episode.

• Leslie Stephen dies of stomach cancer.
• prompts major mental breakdown during which Virginia tries to commit suicide by jumping out of a window
• Stephen children sell their childhood home and buy a house together in the hip Bloomsbury neighborhood of London.

Jan 25, 1882 - Birth of Virginia Woolf

1891- Her half-sister Laura institutionalized

1895 - Death of Virginia's mother

1897 - Death of Virginia's half-sister Stella

1904 - Death of Virginia's Father

1906 - Death of Virginia's Brother, Thoby

1907 - Sister Vanessa Marries Clive Bell

Aug 10, 1912 - Marriage to Leonard Woolf

Aug 4, 1914 - World War I

Nov 11, 1918 - Armistice Day, World War I ends.

1922 - Affair with Vita Sackville-West

1924 - Move to Bloomsbury

1934 - Death of Half-Brother George Duckworth

Jul 18, 1937 - Death of Nephew Julian Bell

Sep 28, 1937 - Death of Half-Brother Gerald Duckworth

Mar 9, 1939 - World War II

1940 - The Blitz

Mar 28, 1941 - Virginia Woolf Commits Suicide

Aug 14, 1969 - Death of Husband Leonard Woolf

In March 1941, Woolf left suicide notes for her husband and sister and drowned herself in a nearby river. She feared her madness was returning and that she would not be able to continue writing, and she wished to spare her loved ones.

Virginia Woolf

Born: June 25, 1882 London

Death: March 28, 1941 in Sussex, England

• born into an educated family
• both parents were widows in their second marriage
• Sir Leslie Stephen was a historian and author, and also one of the most prominent figures in the golden age of mountaineering
• Julia Prinsep Stephen, a reknowned beauty, had been born in India and was a model for several painters. She was also a nurse and wrote a book on the profession
• Virginia had 4 half siblings and 3 full siblings

By Emily Fitch and Tiffany Law