The Lady in the Looking Glass

Virginia Woolf was born in 1882, in London, England, into a large and wealthy family. Her father, Leslie Stephen, was an celebrated figure in the Victorian literary establishment, the first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. Her mother, Julia, was renowned for her beauty and skill as a hostess, drawing on her extensive aristocratic and artistic connections. In many ways, Woolf’s parents were the quintessential respectable Victorian couple. Woolf was homeschooled (common for girls at the time); her father led her studies, and she had access to his substantial library. Virginia was encouraged to write and produced with her sister Vanessa—with whom she had a close and competitive relationship—the “Hyde Park News,” a family magazine.

Woolf’s mother died when she was 13, and the deaths of her half sister Stella, her father, and her brother followed afterward. From 15, she studied Greek, Latin, German, and history at the Ladies Department in King’s College London from 1897 to 1901. In 1904, Woolf moved to Bloomsbury with her siblings and their home became the central social point for a community of writers, artists, critics, and philosophers who debated about literature, art, and ideas, now known as the Bloomsbury Group. Virginia Woolf’s participation in these discussions broadened her horizons considerably and introduced her, as a sheltered Victorian girl, to the new ideas and liberal social mores of the 20th century.