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    A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN
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    A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN
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    A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN
    Ebook130 pages1 hour

    A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN

    By Virginia Woolf

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    About this ebook

    First published on 24 October 1929, the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928. While this extended essay in fact employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers of and characters in fiction, the manuscript for the delivery of the series of lectures, titled "Women and Fiction", and hence the essay, are considered non-fiction. The essay is generally seen as a feminist text, and is noted in its argument for both a literal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy. Virginia Woolf was one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century, transformed the art of fiction. The author of numerous novels and short stories, she was also an acknowledged master of the essay form, and an admired literary critic.
    Adeline Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) was an English writer who is considered one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMusaicum Books
    Release dateDec 6, 2017
    ISBN9788027235674
    Author

    Virginia Woolf

    VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882–1941) was one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century. An admired literary critic, she authored many essays, letters, journals, and short stories in addition to her groundbreaking novels, including Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, and Orlando.

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    Reviews for A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN

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    • 4/5
      Whenever someone talked about Virginia Woolf, they talked about this book, and how much they loved it. They recommended I start here, with A Room of One's Own, a collection of essays given at a speech at various universities.

      I was skeptical. Up until very recently, I didn't read a lot of non-fiction. But this isn't just a collection of essays - you get a sense not only of Woolf's writing, but of the woman herself.

      In this book she speculates that Shakespeare had a sister, and wonders how successful she might've been. (Not very, unless she had A Room of Her Own.)

      The reason I love this book is because Virginia Woolf takes all that is familiar to me as a former history major, (the sexism rife throughout literature) and picks it apart. She's vulnerable, she's frustrated, she's a little bit bitter, but her writing is beautiful.

      I'll leave you with one of the passages from the book that has stayed with me since I read it a few years ago.

      "A 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 is all but absent from history. She dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction; in fact she was the slave of any boy whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words, some of the most profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her husband.”
    • 5/5
      This is a must read for anyone, woman or man. It's a great feminist text but her writing is amazing. It's one of the best essays I have ever read.
    • 5/5
      In addition to being a seminal feminist text, A Room of One's Own is one of the most finely crafted essays in the English language. Its informality and wittiness, and the seamless, seemingly effortless way it seems to guide the reader from thought to thought, make it easy not to notice the beautiful logical structure underpinning the whole. It also has some gorgeous examples of Woolf's style of psychological free association. Such a beautiful essay!
    • 5/5
      As a woman who has longed to write but never been able to distinguish herself from those around her, this essay resonates. At certain times in the book, I felt like I was sitting in the room listening to her say, "But almost without exception they [women] are shown in their relation to men...And how small a part of a woman's life is that...(page 82). I wonder if women, for all our triumphs over paternalistic constraints in less than a century, have recognized we are truly separate beings and not defined by the labels - daughter, sister, wife, mother, caregiver - we attach to ourselves? Woolf's contention that a woman needs her own income, idleness and privacy to create is as true today as it was in 1929 and yet how many women are able to claim this time without guilt? Her closing words haunt me, "...if we face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women..." (page 114).
    • 5/5
      Just completed this brilliant essay for A Novel challenge. It was originally presented by Virginia Woolf to undergraduates of Girton and Newnham Colleges, Cambridge, England in 1929. In essence it is centred upon the theme of women and fiction - yet she devlops ideas that move through life, literature, philosophy and society. I loved her reflective thinking and the way in which she linked her thoughts so seamlessly. In my opinion it was five star plus plus and one of the most wonderful reads I have ever experienced - on a par to war and Peace in terms of impact ...I reserved this book from the library and received the Hogarth press edition of 1959 - that is an old book! However I simply must get my own copy - it has so inspired me. There is a sense of compulsion as I read that I knew I would have to read this work again. I savoured every page, idea and reflection. If you are interested in women, their place in society through history and their writings this is a must for you!
    • 5/5
      This wonderful book seems to be a rite of passage for every young woman in university. It fascinated me when I read it in University ( a long time ago). Indeed i discovered Virginia Woolf and read all of her books in one summer when I was 19 or 20. The only one that I struggled with and did not particularly enjoy was Orlando. Now my daughter is reading A Room and occasionally reads out passages to me. It is as compelling today as it ever was and it is one of many books that I think I should reread.
    • 4/5
      I enjoy Virginia Woolf more and more as I get older (and as I have the opportunity to read her books for a second and sometimes third time). I read A Room of One's Own in a masters class on the essay and I suspect I read it once before that in undergrad as well. This time it's for my last doctoral comp. I love her style here, which is discursive but eminently followable. Her insights into the difficulties of being an artist and a woman seem, in some cases, just as relevant today as they were in 1928 (the conflicts involved in the decision to both work and bear children) and in some cases not (the revelation that a woman should be free from financial dependence on a man) and in some cases to apply to both men and women equally today (the notion that a writer should have her own room into which she can retire and be free from interruptions). Altogether, a satisfying and enjoyable read--and one I look forward to reading some day entirely for its own sake rather than for some stated purpose dictated by my studies.
    • 4/5
      Virginia Woolf's classic essay on women and writing.I am not a big fan of Virginia Woolf. I had to suffer through studying Jacob's Room during my undergrad and abhorred it. The only thing that saved me from completely writing off Virginia Woolf was my knowledge that she highly respected Jane Austen, and I just can't hate anyone who appreciates my favourite author. After reading this essay, I may succumb to all of those suggestions to give Woolf another try.Her prose and her arguments are seductive. In just a little over 100 pages, Woolf discusses the immensity of the topic of Women and Fiction and reaches her very famous conclusion that in order for a woman to be able to write, she must have £500 a year and a room of her own. In the process of reaching this conclusion she explores the position women have held in society, their role in poetry and fiction, and the writing of women. What I found most appealing in Woolf's argument was that writing should not be done solely from a single gender perspective but rather that writer's should strive to be "man-womanly" or "woman-manly." Woolf's essay is definitely feminist but not one of the man-hating variety. Instead, in her conclusion, she exhorts her audience of women to simply take advantage of the opportunities now available to them that women in the past have not had. They have the chance to possess the £500 a year and a room of one's own and should exercise that privilege to share their unique genius with others.
    • 3/5
      This book at times confounded me. Not having a lit background or being well-versed in the classics, there were times I found it difficult to stay engaged with. But then at other times, I found her writing incredibly impactful and it will forever change/alter my view of women's role in fiction both as writers and as characters, and made me think about those limitations in ways I hadn't contemplated before. The fact that she made these astute observations close to 100 years ago is all the more amazing.
    • 5/5
      There are so many great points in this book - the duality of mind, forced intellectual constriction, the patriarchy's effects on creativity, even just that you should write more - and no matter what you take from it, you have to admit it's well written.

      On a side note, "Material Girl" came on while I was reading this and it was really bizarre.
    • 4/5
      I have read sections of this book, but I believe this it the first time that I have read it in its entirety. Here one sees the nascent women's studies movement ready to take flight, for better or for worst. Here, for better. Woolf's approach is light and, even at times humorous. She poses illuminating what ifs, such as what if Shakespeare had had a gifted sister? What would her fate have been? What if women had had money of their own? The book contains one of the very best attempts to define what makes a book a classic that I have come across. If the book has any faults, I would say that there is a tendency to be too precious and like-able. It seems a bit of a put on at times and a bit condescending. All in all a worthy and important look at women in literature by the early 20th century
    • 4/5
      I've always thought that Virginia Woolf was really underrated. This is much different than reading her fiction such as in To The Lighthouse and Orlando because it's a nonfiction examination of many female writers such as Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen. It supposes how difficult writing was for women in the 1800s and earlier as well as how female writers were perceived. It's a really good landmark to show how far women have come through the years. However, Woolf misses the mark in some ways in terms of an elitism in dwelling on the idea of genius existing mainly in the upper and educated classes. Still, a very interesting and thought provoking read.
    • 4/5
      This is a book I’ve wanted to read for a long time, and I suppose I always put it off thinking that while it was an important piece of feminist literature, it would be dull and composed of passages that were revelations in 1928, but would be mundane and only of historical interest in 2016. I was wrong on a couple of counts. Woolf can be ponderous to read at times, but the points she makes still sear with fire, even if she makes them coolly, taking care not to become emotional or to vent her own personal bitterness for having been denied a university education because she was a woman. The book is also more important than ever in a society where misogyny is far from dead, women are regularly dismissed or patronized, and a sizable pay gap still exists.What I liked about Woolf’s approach is that she took the broad view in examining ‘women and fiction’, the topic she had been asked to speak about. She starts by putting a men’s and women’s college side by side, both in terms of the ridiculous restrictions against women in the former (not being allowed on the grass, and not being allowed in the library), and in the poorness of the food in the latter. More importantly, she identifies the fact that women did not have the right to own money for centuries (until about 1880) as having been one of the key reasons they had been in a subservient position, and not free to pursue education or literature in nearly the same way as men. It’s one of the main themes in the book: Woolf essentially says women need 500 pounds a year and a room of their own with a lock on it to enable them to truly succeed in literature. Economic freedom is necessary for intellectual freedom.There are all sorts of contemptible comments from men about women that Woolf refers to in the book, (e.g. Oscar Browning: “the best woman is intellectually the inferior of the worst man”), but she takes the high road, and rather than make personal attacks herself, simply picks these views apart intelligently. In pondering why men seem to feel a need to put women down, she identifies men’s insecurities and their need to feel superior as the probable reason. I found this conclusion dead-on: “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 illusions 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 – it 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.”In a history where girls were not sent to school and were forced to marry who their parents dictated, wife-beating was a recognized right of men, and a woman’s life experiences were often confined to the sitting room, even in authors that succeeded (such as the Brontes, Jane Austen, and George Eliot), Woolf points out that were naturally less able to create richer books than men who had been free to get out into the world (such as Tolstoy). Remaining ‘pure’ as an author, and not becoming defensive or non-authentic given all this baggage, was also difficult, and to Woolf this was very important.Woolf is a lot to handle – she’s likely smarter than the reader (certainly smarter than me), and it’s sometimes difficult to follow her train of thought, as if she’s operating on another plane. She has no qualms about criticizing authors like George Eliot and Robert Louis Stevenson for their writing, and may come across as a snob or a purist. She’s erudite and well-versed in the classics, and yet radical in her politics. She openly embraces non-traditional sexuality, and points out that there is a male and a female inside all of us, and how nice it would be if things weren’t so binary sexually (a prelude to Orlando).All of these things make her extraordinarily interesting to me, aside from the arguments she presents. And I should say that this is not a defeatist book, one that makes a bunch of excuses, or comes across as ‘man-hating’ in any way – it’s just a critical examination of the facts, and Woolf is actually optimistic about the future. Whether we’ve lived up to that optimism and made the progress we should have made I’ll leave to the reader.Quotes:On entering the British Museum; I liked the thought:“The swing-doors swung open; and there one stood under the vast dome, as if one were a thought in the huge bald forehead which is so splendidly encircled by a band of famous names.”On being true to oneself:“I find myself saying briefly and prosaically that it is much more important to be oneself than anything else. Do not dream of influencing other people, I would say, if I knew how to make it sound exalted. Think of things in themselves.”On greed:“…the instinct for possession, the rage for acquisition which drives them to desire other people’s fields and goods perpetually; to make frontiers and flags; battleships and poison gas; to offer up their own lives and their children’s lives. Walk through the Admiralty Arch (I had reached that monument), or any other avenue given up to trophies and cannon, and reflect upon the kind of glory celebrated there. Or watch in the spring sunshine the stockbroker and the great barrister going indoors to make money and more money and more money when it is a fact that five hundred pounds a year will keep one alive in the sunshine.”On writing:“…to write a work of genius is almost always a feat of prodigious difficulty. Everything is against the likelihood that it will come from the writer’s mind whole and entire. Generally material circumstances are against it. Dogs will bark; people will interrupt; money must be made; health will break down. Further, accentuating all these difficulties and making them harder to bear is the world’s notorious indifference. It does not ask people to write poems and novels and histories; it does not need them. It does not care whether Flaubert finds the right word or whether Carlyle scrupulously verifies this or that fact.”And this one, on being honest as a writer:“What one means by integrity, in the case of a novelist, is the conviction that he gives one that this is the truth. Yes, one feels, I should never have thought that this could be so; I have never known people behaving like that. But you have convinced me that so it is, so it happens. One holds every phrase, every scene to the light as one reads – for Nature seems, very oddly, to have provided us with an inner light by which to judge of the novelist’s integrity or dis-integrity.”Lastly, this one, which I found pretty: “The river reflected whatever it chose of sky and bridge and burning tree, and when the undergraduate had oared his boat through the reflections they closed again, completely, as if he had never been.”
    • 5/5
      Is it possible to imagine the reception of this book 86 years ago?
      Did it spark minds, light a fire, or at least prime them for further explosive thoughts?
      The era seems so very long ago, and yet what she writes remains true today. Women, 'gender', sex, power...much has changed yet much has not changed.
      It all seems quite self evident, yet it all still needs to be explained, again and again. Why is that?
      Very slowly though, there has been progress. More of us have our rooms and our five hundred pounds.
      And yesterday the majority of the Irish population said it was just fine with them if Chloe likes Olivia.
      I wonder how Ms Woolf would write this book in an update for today...
    • 5/5
      A short essay presented in book form, and yet one of the most powerful statements ever made in support of the freedom of women to follow their dreams. The way that Woolf structures and builds her essay, step by step from the foundation stones to the steeple-like point, should be a lesson to all aspiring writers.
    • 5/5
      Virginia Woolf essays speak the truth about Women and writing fiction. A true feminist.
    • 4/5
      Asked to talk about Women and Fiction, Virginia Woolf approached the topic in her unique conversational style, moving from one stream of thought to another. This essay, delivered as talks in women's colleges in the 1920s make the case for the importance of women having their own space and income to allow them to explore their own feminine voices. Taking the examples of established authors such as Jane Austen, who famously wrote in the family's sitting room and George Eliot, who not only took on a male nom de plume but also wrote weighty tomes adopting a male narrative style, Woolf also makes the case for the fictional Judith Shakespeare, the would-be sister of the famous playwright. She compares the siblings, who, having equal potential and talent are nonetheless given very different opportunities, the one having access to education and being allowed to work in the theatre as formative experiences and the other being denied these options by virtue of her sex. The author also discusses the importance of women finding their unique mode of self-expression, something which she not only advocated but also took pains to explore in her own work, taking as she did the risk of appealing to a narrower readership while making her mark as an influential writer. I first read this book in the late 80s as part of a Women's Studies course and can't say I got very much out of it the first time around, mostly focusing as I did on the fact that much of the arguments Woolf was making were seemed to me at the time to be no longer relevant to contemporary women. But with this reading, I was very much interested in the argument she made for the fact that women in the past had had to work against challenges far more daunting than those their male counterparts ever faced, with the whole of public opinion set against their efforts to distinguish themselves as anything other than wives and mothers, which makes their achievements that much more valuable. While it's true we've come a very long way, I couldn't help but be once again surprised how plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, since although the majority of women today—at least in the Western world—have all the options they might wish for, more often than not have to sacrifice their artistic ambitions, if not in the name of family then in the name of career, or at least feel they must do so, while those who choose to live for their art are still often regarded as eccentrics and outcasts.
    • 5/5
      I have meant to read this for a while, and now I almost regret not having heard about it much sooner and not having made an effort to read it sooner. This little book is a must-read for every woman, and I hope to think to give it as a gift to as many young women, perhaps it would be an ideal coming-of-age gift, to mark its importance duly. When the book was first published, Virginia Woolf was 46 and she wrote this with a seemingly calm, collected view of a woman who has seen, and understands things. It is such a tragic, wasteful fact, that generations of women were not taken seriously, as a person, as a human being. I am sure that many women have seen the same happen in their homes when they were small, or they still see it all around them. I also hope that new generations of women world-wide will be able to feel and hear their own strong voice within them and that they will find a way to remain independent in whatever they choose to do.
    • 5/5
      A little Candlemas reading for the wolf month.

      I read this when I was 20 or so, and it seemed a historical document, something I was indebted to, as if she were speaking only to women who'd written before me, before the third wave of feminism, so confident was I that things had changed.

      I've been writing for 20 years now. After two decades of sacrifice and focus, writing "deformed and twisted" books while watching only certain women's voices and stories being rewarded with a broad readership, Woolf's argument is entirely necessary, "...to work, even in poverty and obscurity, is worth while."
    • 4/5
      For such a spot-on piece of feminism, this had some very narrow-minded literary criticism. I don't even know how to rate it - there are a few 5-star sections and even more 2-star sections, and I could tell you precisely where each begins and ends.

      Maybe it's just that the rant about writing has aged badly. One can only blabber so much about women writers and men writers before the modern reader starts asking for information about people writers. Still, I can't help but think that, for a bisexual bipolar intellectual woman, Woolf was a bit of a literary fundamentalist. Women must write as women, not as men - but they mustn't try too hard or the writing will become whiny and tainted (apparently literary genius and self-expression are mutually incompatible - yes, she says this explicitly). Except the best writing minds are androgynous, so they should avoid becoming dissociated from their inner man. I'm sorry, what?

      Anyway, let's say that the lit-crit part has aged badly. Why, then, does the feminist discourse in this ring so modern and real? It's just as old as the rest of the book, yet it's not even remotely as outdated. The more I think about this, the more frightening it seems to me.
    • 4/5
      From the book jacket: " ...for everyone who has ever wondered why it is that women are largely absent from the history books, unless they are queens, mothers or mistresses."
    • 3/5
      Woolf's witty and charming essay on women and fiction, making the assertion that for a woman to succeed as a novelist she must have an independent income and "a room of her own", i.e. space to write. Along the way, Woolf has some fine things to say about the history of women in the arts, and their position at the time of writing. Although the style is clearly Edwardian in tone -- it is hard to imagine someone writing with this voice today -- I found it both attractive and entertaining to read, and the subject still of great relevance.
    • 4/5
      a feminist classic every Women's Studies student (formal and informal) should read
    • 3/5
      Virginia Woolf is never easy to read, but I found this slim volume especially difficult. Originally written as two papers to be read to the Arts Society at Newnham and the Odtaa at Girton, the papers were too long to be read in full and were then altered and expanded into book form.Within its 125 pages Woolf explored her opinions on the impediments to women who want to write coming up with her famous conclusion that women need a room of their own and a less famous parallel conclusion that she also needs an income of 500 pounds per year.If one has the patience to wade through Woolf's dense prose you'll find this book one of the early modern feminist tracts. You ill also have some surprises. For example, she talks about how she receive the news of a legacy from an old aunt (the proverbial 500 pound/year) on the same day that women in England were granted the right to vote. An she says, Of the two - the vote sand the money - the money, I own, seemed infinitely the more important. Personally, I was very pleased to see this practical side of her personality.I would put this volume in the "it's good for you" category. Some things you just have to read because they're there
    • 5/5
      This book is near perfect when Virginia Woolf writes about "Women and Writing". She hits it spot on too - women don't have the resources that men do - so they never get a chance to have a proper education because they aren't allowed in the men only libraries of the time. They don't have their own space or their own income, and she points out this is true for anybody, but women mostly (because men can become "made", while their wives will only move up to more drudgery).It is written with a gentle humour that hides a scathing argument. She uses anecdote to statistics to point blank obviousness to stand against the arguments made by men (that women don't have the mental capacity to write fine poetry, or think, or play politics, or even have a say in the world)- this book, while slim, manages to argue each point and does it with grace.
    • 5/5
      A fantastic essay- amazing (and perhaps a bit sad) that the words Woolf wrote about women in 1929 still resonate in 2015.
    • 1/5
      I'm only half way through, but thus far, sigh, it's so monotonous and she goes on and on repetitively about men. Alright already, we got it!
      I find it interesting that in just 54 pages she has already mentioned women suicide at least four times and I wonder if she had already been having issues with her illness at that time.
      She does a disservice to women; going mad and killing herself. For all her snooty snubbing about poor people being so inferior to the rich.
      So one must be a rich woman with a room of her own to be intelligent or be an artist of any kind? According to her writing, this is what can be surmised.
      What a long rant against men. . . and women in some parts. She comes off as a very miserable person.
      pg 108 "a poor child in England has little momre hope than had the son of an Athenian slave to be emancipated into that intellectual freedom of which great writings are born." That is it. Intellectual freedom depends upon material things.
      Women , then, have not had a dog's chance of writig poetry. That is why I have laid so much stress on money and a room of one's own.

      The limitation of her mind, of her thoughts.
    • 4/5
      extended essays about women in writing and feminism in general
    • 5/5
      This is the first book I've ever read where I am sad I didn't read it earlier in life. It is a feminist book without being militant, angry or bitter. In fact, Woolf delivers her feminism with a smile, wink and a great deal of wit. Her defense of women shouldn't offend men. In fact, I imagine most people would nod along with her. Except fans of Charlotte Bronte. But, because of Woolf's winking demeanor through the entire paper (it was originally a lecture to women at Girton, I believe?) I wonder if she was indeed skewering Bronte for losing her message due to Bronte's "anger" or if Woolf was skewering the critics (men) who said the same about Bronte? I'm not familiar enough with Bronte, her critics, fans or otherwise to say. (I don't remember anger or bitterness in Jane Eyre, but I haven't read it in a few years.) But, I do think Woolf has an excellent point: write without anger or bitterness and your message will come across better.

      I listened to the Juliet Stevenson narration of A Room of One's Own. I will listen to anything Juliet Stevenson performs. She is one of the best audiobook narrators out there, especially classics. However, I wish I had the physical book to read along. This book begs for underlining and multiple reads.
    • 5/5
      The book is a fascinating look at fiction, the female author, and what's necessary to write well. While some of her arguments might seem untrue, they always warrant consideration. I was surprised to find her prose accessible, her personality evident and embracing no matter how fervently she agued. A book worthy of reading by any reader or writer.