A Room of One's Own (1929)

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)

A Room of One’s Own

London: Published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press, 1929

A Room of One’s Own grew out of two lectures that Woolf gave in 1928 at the women’s-only colleges of Girton and Newnham, both part of Cambridge University. Addressing the topic of “women and fiction,” Woolf argues that structural inequalities throughout history have impacted women’s independence. She imagines, for example, the life of Shakespeare’s fictional sister, “Judith,” an adventurous and imaginative budding writer whose life is cut short due to her failure to meet expectations of society.