Name: A Room of One's Own
ISBN: 9789389440591

General Press

Virginia Woolf

In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf imagines that Shakespeare had a sister—a sister equal to Shakespeare in talent, and equal in genius, but whose legacy is radically different. This imaginary woman never writes a word and dies by her own hand, her genius unexpressed. If only she had found the means to create, argues Woolf, she would have reached the same heights as her immortal sibling. In this classic essay, she takes on the establishment, using her gift of language to dissect the world around her and give voice to those who are without. Her message is a simple one—women must have a fixed income and a room of their own in order to have the freedom to create. Woolf's blazing polemic on female creativity, the role of the writer, and the silent fate of Shakespeare's imaginary sister remains a powerful reminder of a woman's need for financial independence and intellectual freedom.

A Room of One's Own

Paige Leitner

The very reason why that poetry excites one to such abandonment, such rapture, is that it celebrates some feeling that one used to have (at luncheon parties before the war perhaps), so that one responds easily, familiarly, without troubling to check the feeling, or to compare it with any that one has now. But the living poets express a feeling that is actually being made and torn out of us at the moment. One does not recognize it in the first place; often for some reason one fearsome it; watches it with keenness and compares it jealously and suspiciously with the old feeling that one knew. Hence the difficulty of modern poetry; and it is because of this difficulty that one cannot remember more than two consecutive lines of any good modern poet. For this reason-- that my memory failed me--the argument flagged for want of material. But why, I continued, moving on towards Headingley, have we stopped humming under our breath at luncheon parties?

clara

Perhaps if I lay bare the Ideas, the prejudices, that lie behind this statement you will find that they have some bearing upon women and some upon fiction. At any rate, when a subject is highly controversial-and any question about sex is that-one cannot hope to tell the truth. One can only show how one came to hold whatever opinion one does hold. One can only give one's audience the chance of drawing their own conclusions as they observe the limitations, the prejudices, the idiosyncrasies of the speaker. Fiction here is likely to contain more truth than fact. 

So I went back to my inn, and as I walked through the dark streets I pondered this and that, as one does at the end of the day's work. I pondered why it was that Mrs Seton had no money to leave us; and what effect poverty has on the mind; and what effect wealth has on the mind; (..); and I thought of the organ booming in the chapel and of the shut doors of the library;and I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in; and, thinking of the safety and prosperity of the one sex and of the poverty and insecurity of the other and of the effect of tradition and of the lack of tradition upon the mind of a writer

it was the professor's statement about the mental, moral and physical inferiority of women. My heart had leapt. My cheeks had burnt. I had flushed with anger. There was nothing specially remarkable, however foolish, in that. One does not like to be told that one is naturally the inferior of a little man

Indeed, if woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid: infinitely beautiful and hideous in the extreme, as great as a man, some think even greater. But this is the woman in fiction. In fact, as Professor Trevelyan points out, she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room. A very queer, composite being thus emerges. Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is completely Insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she all but absent from history.

The spectacle is certainly a strange one, I thought. The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself .

Macy HB

That is why Napoleon and Mussolini both insist so emphatically upon the inferiority of women, for if they were not inferior, they would cease to enlarge. That serves to explain in part the Necessity that women so often are to men. And it serves to explain how restless they are under her criticism; how impossible it is for her to say to them this book is bad, this picture is feeble, or whatever it may be, without giving him far more pain and rousing far more anger than a man would do who gave the same criticism. For if she begins to tell the truth the figure in the looking glass shrinks; his fitness for life has diminished.

Indeed, if women had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; infinitely beautiful and hideous in the extreme; as great as a man, some think even greater. But this woman is fiction in fact, as professor Trevelyan points out, she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room.

sorry last Virginia Woolf highlight I promise (I don’t promise)

Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history.

For masterpieces are not single and solitary birth; they are the outcome of many years of thinking common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice

It does not matter which it was; she was thinking of something other than the thing it’s self. Down comes her book upon our heads. There was a flaw in the center of it. And I thought of all the women’s novels that lie scattered, like small pock-marked apples in an orchard about the second hand book shops of London. It was the flaw in the center that had rotted them. She had altered her values in deference to the opinion of others.

She had a sensibility that was very wide, eager and free. It responded to an almost imperceptible touch on it. It feasted like a plant net stood in the air on every sight and sound that came its way. It ranged, too, very subtly and curiously amongst almost unknown or unrecorded things; it lighted on small things and showed that perhaps they were not small after all. It brought buried things to light and made one wonder what need there had been to bury them.

Helen 

Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size. 

I need not hate any man; he cannot hurt me. I need not flatter any man; he has nothing to give me. 

But almost without exception they are shown in their relation to men. It was strange to think that all the great women of fiction were, until Jane Austen's day, not only seen by the other sex, but seen only in relation to the other sex. 

Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time. 

Zainab 

Was ist »Realität«? Offenbar etwas sehr Sprunghaftes, Unzuverlässiges bald auf einer staubigen Straße, bald in einem Zeitungsfetzen im Rinnstein, bald als Narzisse in der Sonne zu finden. Sie erleuchtet eine Gruppe Menschen in einem Zimmer und prägt sich einem hingesagten Satz auf. Sie überfällt einen auf dem Heimweg unter den Sternen, macht die stille Welt realer als die Welt der Worte und dann wieder taucht sie in einem Omnibus inmitten des Lärms vom Piccadilly Circus áuf. Manchmal weilt sie wohl auch nur in Umrissen, zu fern, als dass wir sie er- kennen könnten. Doch sie heilt und verewigt was immer sie berührt. 

Ausrine Blazyte

Thus she enacts the way women have been led to censor themselves, to assume exclusion even before they are exchuded. Yet at the same time we feel here emerging in Woolf a sort of pride in being on the outside. 

 Life for both sexes and I looked at them, shouldering their way along the pavement - is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion as we are, it calls for confidence in oneself. Without self-confidence we are as babes in the cradle. And how can we generate this imponderable quality. which is yet so invaluable, most quickly? By thinking that other people are inferior to oneself. By feeling that one has some innate superiority - ir may be wealth, or rank, a straight nose, or the portrait of a grandfather by Romney, for there is no end to the pathetic devices of the human imagination over other people.

Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would sutfer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged felow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.

This story grew out of a lecture that Virginia Woolf had been invited to give at Girton College, Cambridge in 1928. It ranges over Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, the silent fate of Shakespeare's gifted and imaginary sister, and over the effects of poverty and chastity on female creativity.

This has been unread on my bookshelf since i got it after it was referenced in Susan Sontag’s “Regarding the pain of others”

I won’t speak much on the essays as they are almost century old and both well studied in feminist literary theory. 

After reading this book, i feel quite despondent about how radical Virginia Woolf imagined women’s introduction to political and economic world we had been systemically excluded from to the regression i now see. So much of this book is about the value of economic independence for women and yet now online and in conversation with a lot of women you get and hear advice for hypergamy, trad wife etc etc and yet the women Woolf wrote about in 20th century are so miserable and some went mad in the confinement of marriage and patronage of their fathers and brothers. What can we make of this regression when text like this exists. Virginia Woolf in this book had imagine a post patriarchal society as she could foresee the disaster assimilating into the world of domination, acquisition and militarism would be for women. 

Another critical reading of this book is in its engagement with race. Virginia Woolf earned her economic independence through an inheritance from an aunt in Bombay(colonial name for Mumbai). Dionne Brand's "Readings from the Wreck" taught to find the imperial subtext wherever Virginia Woolf who is mostly concerned with her class of women(daughters of educated men) also seems to suggest these women wouldn't dare to dominate others stating "

It is one of the great advantages of being a woman that one can pass a very fine negress without wishing to make a fine English woman out of her

" I don't know why this seems to me an ahistorical reading of slavery and colonialism. Virginia Woolf is against the world that men have built but I think sometimes in this book she gives women too much grace for perhaps their indirect participation in worlds of domination. Though to be fair she does state in the last chapters how the public and private worlds of tyranny and servility are interconnected and women are not passive spectators to them and should be able through thoughts and actions to change them.

The three guineas essay was my favorite of the two because of its relevance today as war is being raged in various parts of the world. Her analysis on the relationship between patriarchy and militarism is revelatory. I look forward to now reading her novels as I enjoyed this a lot and probably one of my favorite books now.

Marion

This has been unread on my bookshelf since i got it after it was referenced in Susan Sontag’s “Regarding the pain of others”

I won’t speak much on the essays as they are almost century old and both well studied in feminist literary theory. 

After reading this book, i feel quite despondent about how radical Virginia Woolf imagined women’s introduction to political and economic world we had been systemically excluded from to the regression i now see. So much of this book is about the value of economic independence for women and yet now online and in conversation with a lot of women you get and hear advice for hypergamy, trad wife etc etc and yet the women Woolf wrote about in 20th century are so miserable and some went mad in the confinement of marriage and patronage of their fathers and brothers. What can we make of this regression when text like this exists. Virginia Woolf in this book had imagine a post patriarchal society as she could foresee the disaster assimilating into the world of domination, acquisition and militarism would be for women. 

Another critical reading of this book is in its engagement with race. Virginia Woolf earned her economic independence through an inheritance from an aunt in Bombay(colonial name for Mumbai). Dionne Brand's "Readings from the Wreck" taught to find the imperial subtext wherever Virginia Woolf who is mostly concerned with her class of women(daughters of educated men) also seems to suggest these women wouldn't dare to dominate others stating "It is one of the great advantages of being a woman that one can pass a very fine negress without wishing to make a fine English woman out of her" I don't know why this seems to me an ahistorical reading of slavery and colonialism. Virginia Woolf is against the world that men have built but I think sometimes in this book she gives women too much grace for perhaps their indirect participation in worlds of domination. Though to be fair she does state in the last chapters how the public and private worlds of tyranny and servility are interconnected and women are not passive spectators to them and should be able through thoughts and actions to change them.

The three guineas essay was my favorite of the two because of its relevance today as war is being raged in various parts of the world. Her analysis on the relationship between patriarchy and militarism is revelatory. I look forward to now reading her novels as I enjoyed this a lot and probably one of my favorite books now.

pure visionary, a woman of the modern times simply born in the 1800s. funny at times and forces reflection the next. would be 5 stars if the sentences weren’t so long. perhaps if I had a longer attention span unsullied by doomscrolling, so it might be on me entirely.

Finished my first non-fiction read. This book is an extended essay based on a series of lectures Virginia Woolf delivered in 1928 at Newnham and Girton, two women’s colleges at Cambridge University, under the title Women and Fiction.

Woolf argues that women need financial independence and personal freedom in order to produce literature. She explores how women have historically been denied access to education, wealth, and private creative space.

Woolf also critiques the male-dominated literary canon, noting that male writers often reduced women to symbols, fantasies, or plot devices, rather than portraying them as fully realized, complex individuals.

Finished my first non-fiction read. This book is an extended essay based on a series of lectures Virginia Woolf delivered in 1928 at Newnham and Girton, two women’s colleges at Cambridge University, under the title Women and Fiction.

Woolf argues that women need financial independence and personal freedom in order to produce literature. She explores how women have historically been denied access to education, wealth, and private creative space.

Woolf also critiques the male-dominated literary canon, noting that male writers often reduced women to symbols, fantasies, or plot devices, rather than portraying them as fully realized, complex individuals.



and, Three guineas

A room of one's own

Well now I'm only thinking of her. I perhaps should have read something of Woolf's nonfiction earlier in life than this, but then, I don't think I would feel the same about it if I did. 

Kiersten

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”

Dess.

Based on two talks given by the author, and first published in September 1929, Virginia Woolf's seminal essay revolves around the central claim that a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. Outlining the importance of education and financial independence, Woolf draws up a history of women writers and demonstrates how they had to operate as outsiders in a society that sought to exclude them.

A Room of One's Own (Hero Classics)

in my humble opinion, every woman should read this 

ruth opiela

Kendine Ait Bir Oda

İçeriği kadar ifade gücüne de hayran kaldığım eser. Özellikle kamusal alan özel alan  ayrımında kadınların üzerine kapanan kapıları çok iyi betimleyen, güçlendirici ve ilham verici bir konuşma. 

Cemrenur Solakoğlu

Bilinç akışı tekniğiyle yazıldığı için, takip etmekte biraz zorlansam da içerik olarak çok güzeldi. Kadınların değişmeyen sorunlarından ve çözüm arayışından, yazarın zamanının çok ötesinde düşüncelerini  yaşamı ile birlikte değerlendirdiğimde çok etkilendim. Herkese özellikle de kadınlara tavsiye ederim.

Serap

I had difficulty extracting the sentences and understanding some references Woolf mentioned. I understand that she was highlighting the unfairness of the literary world for women in the 19th century. She wanted to provide examples of women writers who didn’t have a room of their own yet still managed to write fiction. What I don’t understand is the point of her criticism towards them when she previously mentioned male writers, but I could review some of my highlights and see how she took this perspective when nobody else would—to see women writers from a different light.

🏹

An extended essay which was based on a series of lectures that Woolf delivered at two women's colleges which are part of Cambridge University. The essay explores women both as writers and characters in fiction.

I'm absolutely speechless after reading this. 

While Woolf's fiction is so well done, this mix of a fictionalized narrative with the tone and style of an essay is incredible. I think this might be a good book to use for my dissertation because it just makes so much commentary on things like gender, literature, politics, and so much more. 

I'm absolutely speechless after reading this. 

While Woolf's fiction is so well done, this mix of a fictionalized narrative with the tone and style of an essay is incredible. I think this might be a good book to use for my dissertation because it just makes so much commentary on things like gender, literature, politics, and so much more. 

Clay Carey

In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf imagines that Shakespeare had a sister: a sister equal to Shakespeare in talent, equal in genius, but whose legacy is radically different.This imaginary woman never writes a word and dies by her own hand, her genius unexpressed. But if only she had found the means to create, urges Woolf, she would have reached the same heights as her immortal sibling. In this classic essay,Virginia Woolf takes on the establishment, using her gift of language to dissect the world around her and give a voice to those who have none. Her message is simple: A woman must have a fixed income and a room of her own in order to have the freedom to create.

A Room of One’s Own

From the pretext of 'a room of one's own', i didn't expect how it would so sublimely touches on equality and privilege issues. Woolf probed how the English culture before 1800's deprived women of intellectual agency hence the lack of literary trace by women from that time. A shame that literary geniuses might have been born and die without touching a pen simply because then a woman couldn't afford the time and energy, saves from what was highly demanded from her societal role, not to mention that a female writer would be ridiculed, and denied apprenticeship and all the access necessary to hone the mastery. And the fact remains till now that only the privileged with a room of one's own can have their mind roam and aspire to make masterpieces, quite a hard pill to swallow. 
Woolf wrote beautifully so reading this was a treat. I'm not feeling the 5th chapter tho. She got some points there but i don't think that a book is a place to take a direct jab at other authors, especially the one she thought was a lesser genius. She put it nicely in the end but i'm still a bit iffy. It'd be a 3.6/5 from me.

if I were to get a text tattooed on my forehead from start to finish it would be this…

Niki Sotiropoulou-Nassika

Una stanza tutta per sé

virginia woolf is a queen. the way she has to explain her thoughts is amazing. the fluidity, the music of her words is unbelievable. some pages seemed to me not very smooth and sometimes I had a bit of difficulty to continue without interruptions. but this doesn't matter compared to Virginia's genius. as a woman I feel guilty about all the possibilities I have (which women in the past didn't have) and that are not used properly to improve my genre. 

Maria Pia Cerbo 

jess

"Praise and blame alike mean nothing. No, delightful as the pastime of measuring may be, it is the most futile of all occupations, and to submit to the decrees of the measurers the most servile of attitudes. So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say."

This book revolves the theme around Women and Fiction, so it naturally explores the critical distinction of male and female writers back then, and their prospects. Well back then, women had been so oppressed to the point that the oppression has coincided within their nature. Writing poetry or novels have been such an obstacle. Woolf orchestrated this whole essay on describing each prominent female writers, such as Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, etc also male writers such as Shelley, Tolstoy, Wordsworth, etc that might or might not be androgynous and why. 

"Virility has now become self-conscious-men, that is to say, are now writing only with the male side of their brains. It is a mistake for a woman to read them, for she will inevitably look for something that she will not find."

This whole writer-sphere-short-expository-essay is a definite fundamental for all writers out there. Woolf mentioned, "Women have always been poor since the beginning of time, had less intellectual freedom, not a dog's chance of writing poetry, therefore I laid so much stress on money and a room of one's own."

interesting thoughts but mostly white-women focused which is too bad but understandable because of when it was written. nonetheless, i love that now more women are in literature, not to only express their anger towards the patriarchy but also to make us travel through new worlds.

mari

Soha

I struggled with the first chapter. Virgnia Woolf employs a fictional narrator to get her point across but I couldn't stop reading it after I got past the first chapter. When I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about it - while standing in the morning sun in my balcony, while cooking, while getting into bed, while working on my laptop. 

While this tiny book packs a powerful punch, I think it's important to note that she doesn't touch upon many aspects of intersectionality.

The essay begins with a question and it's a delight to see it being explored and answered in the stream-of-consciousness style of Virginia Woolf.

Virginia Woolf's blazing polemic on female creativity, the role of writers and the silent fate of Shakespeare's imaginary sister remains a powerful reminder of a woman's need for financial independence and intellectual freedom.

lili🎐

Hannah Yang

"So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its colour, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery, and the sacrifice of wealth and chastity which used to be said to be the greatest of human disasters, a mere flea-bite in comparison."

I've wanted to read something by Virginia Woolf ever since I read All the Bright Places, and I am so glad that I started with A Room of One's Own. What an inspiring, beautifully-written piece on creativity—and a call to action that I think will always be relevant to women (and men)! 

Woolf carefully considers what circumstances have hampered the ability for women to express themselves freely and wholly in their art. At the same time, this is no indignant cry for help: she ends with the argument that today's women must not make excuses for themselves, and must take advantage of their intellectual privileges (that past women artists have fought for and did not get to enjoy themselves). I loved the idea of writing as a kind of continual art, which builds upon previous ideas and events rather than emerging from a single voice; a sort of human symphony. I feel inspired, and am asking myself now: how will I shape my voice within this symphony? What are the layers of unfruitful emotion, prejudices against myself and others, and "proving-myself-ness" that I must peel away to get at the real message I want to send? That is, now that I have a room of my own, what will I do with it?

This is my first impression of Woolf, and she did not disappoint. Across the century which separates her writing and my reading, so much rings true. Her belief in women and her conviction that women are not naturally less than men but must still undertake the hard work of proving it, has earned much respect from me. Doubly so due to the wonderful words and sentences which she built this book from. 

It is so easy to forget that not a century ago, no women was known who was mediocre. One had to be phenomenal, and more than that liked by those who chose what to revere, those being primarily men. This work will make me smile the next time I read a less than great book by a woman; how lucky we are to be allowed to create bad art! To speak oddly and look undone and express what we truly feel! How better off the world is, man, woman, and all of the other sexes which we have so much to learn from, that women now have a voice. 

This book was a series of revelations. A reminder of my luck and that I am more than me, I am also a steward of the legacies of the women before me. What a wonderful comfort knowing I’ll never be alone and a solemn journey to live a life independent of men, a life few women have been able to have. 

Emily McMeans

This is my first impression of Woolf, and she did not disappoint. Across the century which separates her writing and my reading, so much rings true. Her belief in women and her conviction that women are not naturally less than men but must still undertake the hard work of proving it, has earned much respect from me. Doubly so due to the wonderful words and sentences which she built this book from. 

It is so easy to forget that not a century ago, no women was known who was mediocre. One had to be phenomenal, and more than that liked by those who chose what to revere, those being primarily men. This work will make me smile the next time I read a less than great book by a woman; how lucky we are to be allowed to create bad art! To speak oddly and look undone and express what we truly feel! How better off the world is, man, woman, and all of the other sexes which we have so much to learn from, that women now have a voice. 

This book was a series of revelations. A reminder of my luck and that I am more than me, I am also a steward of the legacies of the women before me. What a wonderful comfort knowing I’ll never be alone and a solemn journey to live a life independent of men, a life few women have been able to have. 

I had tears in my eyes while I read. I wish I could talk to. Virginia and tell her it’s better now. I wish I could thank her for building the golden way for us, women today. We couldn’t have been serious writers and just humans without her. I love her and I hope that from heaven she can see that women don’t own a room, they own a whole apartment. We own apartments.

Yalin Tsikun

charisa

entirely unplanned, but this essay paired so well with babel. i found woolf’s candidness so refreshing, and her insights on how feminism should inform the literary canon relevant even in this age. appreciated her very genteel roasts of the patriarchy LOL. writers on writing seems to provoke limitless conversation about the greater world.

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” Considered as one of the classics of twentieth century feminist literature, The Room of One’s Own is a book-length essay written by Virginia Woolf. Delineating the basic requirements of a woman to write, the author incorporates detailed revelations of the various power structures that stop a woman to excel and elucidate her creative capabilities. Illustrating the importance of women’s literacy through a fictional character named Judith Shakespeare, The Room of One’s Own encourages women to rise above patriarchal monotony and set a unique literary tradition of their own!

Room Of One's Own

It's so powerful and it just makes one perceive things so differently.

akshita

marti

this took me longer than it should have for how short it is but i’m honestly glad i took my time with it. virginia woolf’s writing is so complex to me i had to rethink every word i read but it was so worth it at the end, it all leads to her conclusion in which she gives women an advice that is so important i wish every woman read it, it honestly can’t be said better than the way she did. also she’s so funny i feel like she would have a blast arguing on twitter