Have you ever heard of Virginia Woolf? And...Did you know she was one of the most influential female writers of all time?

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Who was she?

Adeline Virginia Stephen, best known as Virginia Woolf was an English writer. She was born on January 25, 1882 in London and she died in March 28, 1941, near Rodmell, Sussex. She is considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors (especially when it comes to women) and whose novels, through their nonlinear approaches to narrative, exerted a major influence on the genre. She changed the way we tell stories and she was one of the first to use the "stream of consciousness" as known in English language, as a narrative device. Woolf was born in a very afluent family, in South Kensington (London). She was the seventh child of mother Julia Prinsep Jackson and father Leslie Stephen in a blended family of eight which included the modernist painter Vanessa Bell. She didn't go to school but was home-schooled in English classics and Victorian literature from a young age. She was also very involved in the women's rights movement, from where she came into contact while studying. Woolf began to write professionally in 1900 by influence of her father. Still to this day, she's one of the most important English writers and her work was also cited for inspiring feminism and other women around the world. Her works have been translated into more than 50 languages.

What did she write?

Mrs Dalloway is a novel by Virginia Woolf that details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a fictional high-society woman in post–First World War England. It is one of Woolf's best-known novels. It was published on 14 May, 1925. This book was originally called "The Hours".
To the Lighthouse is a novel by Virginia Woolf. The novel centers on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920. The plot of To the Lighthouse is secondary to its philosophical introspection. It was published on 1927.
Orlando: A Biography is a novel by Virginia Woolf. Inspired by the tumultuous family history of the aristocratic poet and novelist Vita Sackville-West, Woolf's lover and close friend, it is arguably one of her most popular novels. It was published on 1928.
The Waves is a novel by Virginia Woolf and is considered to be her most experimental work. The book consists of soliloquies spoken by six characters Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville, Jinny, and Louis. In this book, Woolf explores concepts of individuality, self and community. It was published on 1931.
The Years is a novel by Virginia Woolf, the last she published in her lifetime. It traces the history of the Pargiter family from the 1880s to the "present day" of the mid-1930s. It was published on 1937.
A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. In her essay, Woolf uses metaphors to explore social injustices and comments on women's lack of free expression. It was published on 1928.

That was all she wrote...?

No! Virginia Woolf Woolf wrote a body of autobiographical work and more than 500 essays and reviews but those are definitely her most influential books. Woolf also wrote pioneering essays on artistic theory, literary history, women’s writing, and the politics of power.

How did she die?

Virginia Woolf suffered from depression and in the last days, she couldn't fight her mental illness anymore. Unable to cope with her despair, Woolf pulled on her overcoat, filled its pockets with stones and walked into the River Ouse on March 28, 1941. As she waded into the water, the stream took her with it. The authorities found her body three weeks later. In her suicide note, addressed to her husband, she wrote:

"Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight it any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that—everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. V."

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Those are some of her most beautiful quotes!

"I have a deeply hidden and inarticulate desire for something beyond the daily life." — Virginia Woolf.

"I belong to quick, futile moments of intense feeling. Yes, I belong to moments. Not to people." — Virginia Woolf.

"I think sometimes I am not a woman, but the light that falls on this gate, on this ground. I am the seasons, I think sometimes, January, May, November; the mud, the mist, the dawn." — Virginia Woolf.

"She naturally loved solitary places, vast views, and to feel herself for ever and ever and ever alone." — Virginia Woolf.