Virginia Woolf’s classic plea for a world in which women are free to use their gifts is as
powerful and resonant as ever. In this influential extended essay Virginia Woolf outlined
what women need in order to fully make use of their abilities. Using powerful images and
memorable thought experiments--such as a fictional sister of William Shakespeare who is as
talented as her brother but limited in ways he was not--Woolf analyzes the many ways in which
women have been held back throughout history and still are in her own time. First published in
1929 A Room of One's Own has been a towering and inspirational statement of feminist
principles for nearly a century--and remains relevant now at a time of growing awareness of
the kind of social injustices that she decried.
