History of Virginia Woolf

We're currently doing the class discussion on Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, and my curiosity started to get the best of me, I was very interested in looking in to the history of Virginia so I decided I would do some research online to see what I could find out.

Virginia Stephens as she was known as before her marriage was born in London on January 25, 1882. She was the daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen whom was a famous Philosopher who, along with many other literary occupations, was at was an editor for the Dictionary of National Biography. Her mother, Julia Stephen, whom died when she was 13, was a renowned beauty born in India, and moved to England with her mother where she worked as a model for pre-Raphaelite painters such as Edward Burne-Jones.

Virginia and her sister didn’t go to a public school; they were educated at their father’s library in their home and through the meeting of some of her father’s famous literature friends Virginia soon feel in love with literature. She began writing professionally 1900 and published her first piece of literature in 1915. In 1912, eight years after her father’s death, Virginia married Leonard Woolf. The couple in 1917 founded the Hogarth Press by setting hand printing on an old press. She published many more pieces throughout the years; so many that I was too lazy to count them all!

From all the depression she was facing from World War 2 and during the London blitz she was starting to be down on life. On the 28^th of March in 1941 she put on her overcoat, filled it with rocks and jumped into the River Ouse and drowned herself… her body was not found until April 18

Tuesday.

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 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.