A collectible hardcover edition of 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 Vitae Edition In October 1928 Virginia Woolf delivered two lectures to the women’s
colleges at the University of Cambridge arguing with inimitable wit and rhetorical mastery
that an income and a room of one’s own are essential to a woman’s creative freedom. These
lectures became the basis for A Room of One’s Own a landmark in feminist thought in which
Woolf imagines the fictional Judith Shakespeare sister to William and equally gifted but lost
to history. How much genius has gone unexpressed Woolf wonders because women are not afforded
the same privileges as men? A hundred years later her brilliant polemic reverberates into our
own time. In this edition Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary and bestselling novelist
Xochitl Gonzalez contributes an introductory essay that extends the argument to Woolf’s
housekeeper breaking down divides of not only gender but also race and class in order to
include all women in Woolf’s profoundly inspiring call to realize their creative potential.
Penguin Vitae—loosely translated as “Penguin of one’s life”—is a deluxe hardcover series from
Penguin Classics celebrating a dynamic and diverse landscape of classic fiction and nonfiction
from seventy-five years of classics publishing. Penguin Vitae provides readers with beautifully
designed classics that have shaped the course of their lives and welcomes new readers to
discover these literary gifts of personal inspiration intellectual engagement and creative
originality.
