Happy birthday, Virginia Woolf
Today marks the 136th anniversary of Virginia Woolf’s birth. Happy birthday to a literary icon; happy birthday, Virginia Woolf.
A pioneer of stream-of-conciousness writing, Woolf left behind an endlessly influential body of work, which includes novels, essays and criticism. “Mrs. Dalloway,” “To the Lighthouse” and “The Waves” are among her most significant and groundbreaking works of fiction; the extended essay “A Room of One’s Own” remains a touchstone text and discourse on women’s writing today.
She was the grand dame of the British intellectual collective known as the Bloomsbury Group, which included her husband Leonard, with whom Woolf founded publisher Hogarth Press, and Woolf’s sister, the artist Vanessa Bell.
Ambitious and innovative, Woolf was a pioneer of modernism whose texts today still entrance academics and readers.
To honor her 136th birthday, today’s Google Doodle features an illustration of the author’s noble profile by London illustrator Louise Pomeroy. On twitter, fans celebrate the lasting influence of her work.
Plagued by mental illness, Woolf committed suicide in 1941. Yet her books remain iconic modernist and feminist narratives to this day.
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