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). Jenny Offill (foreword) is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Weather; the nationally bestselling novel Dept. of Speculation, which was one of The New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of 2014; and the novel Last Things, which was a New York Times Notable Book and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction. She lives in upstate New York and teaches at Bard College and in the low residency program at Queens University of Charlotte. Elaine Showalter (introduction, notes) is Professor of English, Emerita, at Princeton University, and the author of many works of feminist literary criticism. Stella McNichol (editor) was the author of several critical studies on Virginia Woolf.
