A Room of One's Own

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Virginia Woolf's pioneering work of feminism, "probably the most influential piece of non-fictional writing by a woman in the twentieth century" (Hermione Lee), featuring a new introduction by Xochitl Gonzalez, Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Olga Dies Dreaming and Anita de Monte Laughs Last A Penguin Classic Virginia Woolf's pioneering work of feminism, "probably the most influential piece of non-fictional writing by a woman in the twentieth century" (Hermione Lee),featuring a new introduction by Xochitl Gonzalez, Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Olga Dies Dreaming and Anita de Monte Laughs Last A Penguin Classic In October 1928, Virginia Woolf delivered a series of lectures to the two women's colleges at Cambridge University, and the result was thus- A Room of One's Own, an extended essay that outlines the limitations on women throughout history and in her own time. Through a series of metaphors, scenarios, and analysis of her literary predecessors-which includes a powerful thought experiment about a fictional sister of William Shakespeare and musings on female writers such as the Bronte sisters-Woolf argues that women need a literal and figurative personal space to make their mark on a society dominated by men. In doing so, she urges us to consider the ways in which we continue to be constrained by our material and societal circumstances today, at a time when these discrepancies are recognized as even more multifaceted than in Woolf's era.

Reviews

Brilliant, incandescent . . . Woolf makes an impossibly elegant argument about the myriad ways that womens voices have been silenced, suppressed, and otherwise forgotten. . . . Do not let this volume sit on your shelves unread. Make this beautiful Penguin Classics edition more than a totem to your values, or a lovely marker of how far we all have come. It is so much more: It is an active, breathing rallying cry. It is an enduring font for dialogue, discussion, and debate. And it holds in its pages the soul of a woman who demanded, and inspires us to demand, our full liberation. Xochitl Gonzalez, from the Introduction

Author Bio

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), one of the great twentieth-century authors, was at the center of the Bloomsbury Group and is a major figure in the history of literary feminism and modernism. She published her first novel, The Voyage Out, in 1915, and between 1925 and 1931 produced what are now regarded as her finest masterpieces, including Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and The Waves (1931). She also maintained an astonishing output of literary criticism, short fiction, journalism, and biography, including the playfully subversive Orlando (1928) and the passionate feminist essay A Room of One's Own (1929). Xochitl Gonzalez (introduction) is the author of the New York Times bestseller Olga Dies Dreaming and the Reese's Book Club pick Anita de Monte Laughs Last. She was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for her essays in The Atlantic. Mich le Barrett (editor, notes) is Professor Emerita of Modern Literary and Cultural Theory at Queen Mary, University of London, and the author of Virginia Woolf- Women and Writing and Women's Oppression Today.