- Paperback: 128 pages
- Publisher: Flamingo; (Reissue) edition (9 May 1994)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0006547583
- ISBN-13: 978-0006547587
- Product Dimensions: 19 x 12.7 x 1.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,515,216 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
In 1928 Virginia Woolf read two papers to the women students of Cambridge. She wished to share with them the ideas that had led her to conclude: "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction". This book is the result.
Book Description
Cambridge Literature is a series of literary texts edited for study by students aged 14–18 in English-speaking classrooms. It will include novels, poetry, short stories, essays, travel-writing and other non-fiction. The series will be extensive and open-ended and will provide school students with a range of edited texts taken from a wide geographical spread.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
But, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and fiction - what has that got to do with a room of one's own ? I will try to explain. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
But, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and fiction - what has that got to do with a room of one's own ? I will try to explain. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
73 of 73 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Asked originally to deliver a talk on Women and Fiction in 1928, Virginia Woolf eventually produced this longer essay which expands its subject to cover education, marriage, property and money. She moves backwards through literary history, examining the women who have written, often against great opposition, and the female characters that have been written, mostly by men, and finds a startling anomaly: "Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is completely insignificant."
Unlike many feminist authors, Woolf does not argue for tearing down the achievements of male authors. In fact she argues that both sexes should write androgynously, in order to find the proper reality of things, but at its heart it is a feminist essay. At the time Woolf was writing women had been granted many more freedoms than their mothers, but still had a lot to fight for, and she urges women to do so, albeit for the realm of intellectual freedom and the pleasure of writing for a living. (I have no doubt she would do the same today, despite all our apparent advances.)
She knew she was one of the fortunate (she was left five hundred pounds a year by her aunt, giving her economic independence) and she famously concludes that a women must have a room of her own and money of her own in order to write. But why? It is not so that there are idle hours to be filled by writing - it is because writing well and truthfully can only be properly achieved when a woman is not railing against the bounds of poverty, dependence, social exclusion and disapproval.
The essay is, however, also art. Unlike a dry academic paper it skips lightly and often with humour from subject to observation, and demonstrates with her usual deftness how the real world produces new trains of thought in a person, just as a person's thoughts can mean interpreting the world in a new way. The very construction of the essay is an example of the work she is promoting, to attempt "to live in the presence of reality, an invigorating life." Because of this, and the sheer energy of the writing, it is a work that deserves a reading, no matter what your sex or station or ambition. And if you are a woman intending to write, be it a novel, travelogue or PHD you really ought to give up a couple of hours to read this; you are almost certainly guaranteed a new enthusiasm for your task.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
'A Room of One's Own' is an extremely readable essay. It's a delightful read and the classification of it as an 'essay' should not put anyone off as it is as entertaining as any of Woolf's prose. Once I started reading it I could not stop. Woolf flirts with you through her narrative, drawing you in to her thought processes, enticing you to follow her narrator on a journey of the mind as she wanders about 'Oxbridge' and London. Woolf demonstrates great insight, forseeing the future for women and their involvement in the arts with great accuracy. Through her narrative she also introduces a new discourse, one that she encourages other women to take up in order to free themselves from the masculine domination of literature. Inspirational.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I found this an enjoyable read; a bit rambling and idiosyncratic, but not the worse for it, as the writer's personality comes across well, which is one of the things she says in the book is important to her as a writer - that one should be oneself. That in itself is a good message, and, though it is a "feminist" book, I like that fact that she did not resort to male-bashing or treating all women as paragons, and liked her theory that many fine minds, whether male or female are actually quite androgynous and not limited by preconceptions of what a male or female should be like.
Her main premise, that in the past not many women wrote due to prosaic reasons like having no private room to do it in, and her discussions in general about the lives of women in earlier centuries, are thought-provoking (and I discovered where the phrase Shakespeare's Sister comes from).
Her theory that the best writing comes when the person is self-confident and secure and has no particular chips on their shoulder is interesting, though maybe it could be debated - could it not also be said that some great art has come from people who had suffered a lot (Woolf herself, had traumatic periods of depression and a tragic death) and also from people who wanted to prove some point or other? But I see where she is coming from, that there are certain works of great art that are just beautiful and satisfying in themselves with no particular sense that the author is trying to make some point or express their angst with the world.
One thing that mildly irritated me though was her ideal that to write well one should really try to arrange to have a nice independent income so as to not have any financial worries and not have to answer to a boss at work etc, but just be able to dream and ponder and travel and express oneself etc. We can't all be as fortunate as her to have rich aunts who leave us lots of money, and though she points out that women in her day now had possibilities of making money through different kinds of work, it would be a rare one who was able to find something that allowed for the kind of liberty she holds up as the ideal for writing creatively.
In passing, I was interested by some of the insights into the time, such as how from the end of the war she says women had had the chance to go into almost all the professions - and some people these days seem to think the emancipation of women started in about the 60s or something.. also that the word "feminist" was already used (though it seems it was a bit negative - used for people who were thought a bit strident about women's rights), and , how, for example the First World War was then known as The European War.
Her main premise, that in the past not many women wrote due to prosaic reasons like having no private room to do it in, and her discussions in general about the lives of women in earlier centuries, are thought-provoking (and I discovered where the phrase Shakespeare's Sister comes from).
Her theory that the best writing comes when the person is self-confident and secure and has no particular chips on their shoulder is interesting, though maybe it could be debated - could it not also be said that some great art has come from people who had suffered a lot (Woolf herself, had traumatic periods of depression and a tragic death) and also from people who wanted to prove some point or other? But I see where she is coming from, that there are certain works of great art that are just beautiful and satisfying in themselves with no particular sense that the author is trying to make some point or express their angst with the world.
One thing that mildly irritated me though was her ideal that to write well one should really try to arrange to have a nice independent income so as to not have any financial worries and not have to answer to a boss at work etc, but just be able to dream and ponder and travel and express oneself etc. We can't all be as fortunate as her to have rich aunts who leave us lots of money, and though she points out that women in her day now had possibilities of making money through different kinds of work, it would be a rare one who was able to find something that allowed for the kind of liberty she holds up as the ideal for writing creatively.
In passing, I was interested by some of the insights into the time, such as how from the end of the war she says women had had the chance to go into almost all the professions - and some people these days seem to think the emancipation of women started in about the 60s or something.. also that the word "feminist" was already used (though it seems it was a bit negative - used for people who were thought a bit strident about women's rights), and , how, for example the First World War was then known as The European War.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Witty and Wise
Virginia Woolf was asked to give a talk about Women and Fiction in 1928. The talk eventually became this book. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Damaskcat
A daughter's gift, redux...
There it was, sitting high on my daughter's bookshelf, still, as I see it, while she is half a world away. Read more
Published 8 months ago by John P. Jones III
...whether she has a pen in her hand or a pickaxe...
There was a rotten speck, like a maggot in an apple, at the centre of women's writing, according to Virginia Woolf in 1928. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Eileen Shaw
Relevant Today
Many of the problems associated with being a woman in Britain at the time this book was written still exist today. Some have gone away, but only to be replaced by new ones. Read more
Published 16 months ago by K. H. Tonge
An side of Virginia
It was the first book I read written by Virginia Woolf. It really surprised me because the book is a series of lectures she gave about women writers. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Maria Sette
The only book that ever changed my opinion.
My girlfriend studies women literature, and I always joke with her saying- oh, you feminists, I know what you are like. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Whyareyouonyourowntonight
essential reading
for anyone interested in feminism or literary criticism this is essential and brilliant reading- one of my favourite books.
Published 22 months ago by J. A. Nicholas
Hope the book is good, Amazon sent me the wrong edition
I ordered this edition of the book, but I received a different one from a completely different publisher. Read more
Published on 1 Feb 2010 by Samantha
Brilliant Essay On Women
There is no mistaking Woolf's writing style: intricate, introspective, convoluted and then again portraying ideas and situations with brilliant clarity and insight. Read more
Published on 20 Sep 2009 by Douglas P. Murphy
Witty, concise and refreshing - even today.
Woolf's trademark wit and literary talent are combined in this concise, classic essay based around a couple of speeches on 'Women and Fiction' she gave in 1928. Read more
Published on 10 Sep 2009 by L. Ross
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