An insightful, witty look at the life of Virginia Woolf through the lens of the extraordinary women closest to her.
How did Adeline Virginia Stephen become the great writer Virginia Woolf? Acclaimed biographer Gillian Gill tells the stories of the women whose legacies—of strength, style, and creativity—shaped Woolf’s path to the radical writing that inspires so many today.
Gill casts back to Woolf’s French-Anglo-Indian maternal great-grandmother Thérèse de L’Etang, an outsider to English culture whose beauty passed powerfully down the female line; and to Woolf’s aunt Anne Thackeray Ritchie, who gave Woolf her first vision of a successful female writer. Yet it was the women in her own family circle who had the most complex and lasting effect on Woolf. Her mother, Julia, and sisters Stella, Laura, and Vanessa were all, like Woolf herself, but in markedly different ways, warped by the male-dominated household they lived in. Finally, Gill shifts the lens onto the famous Bloomsbury group. This, Gill convinces, is where Woolf called upon the legacy of the women who shaped her to transform a group of men—united in their love for one another and their disregard for women—into a society in which Woolf ultimately found her freedom and her voice.
Praise for Virginia Woolf
“Woolf’s life has been endlessly pored over, but Gill finds a fresh way in by structuring her chatty, occasionally speculative biography around the female influences on Woolf’s thinking and well-being, including her bohemian sister, Vanessa.” —New York Times Book Review
“Captivating and incisive.” —BookPage
“Gill presents a deft and empathetic portrayal of Woolf, the most famous author in the Bloomsbury group, by providing fascinating personal histories of generations of Pattle and Stephen women who influenced and inspired her.” —Booklist
“This volume will be welcomed by readers and students curious about the cultural aspects of Woolf’s development as a writer.” —Library Journal
