by Gillian Gill
First published 2019
Acclaimed biographer Gillian Gill examines Virginia Woolf through the women who molded her life and art. Gill traces the influence back to Woolf's maternal great-grandmother Thérèse de L'Etang, a French-Anglo-Indian beauty whose outsider status and striking looks became part of the family legacy. She explores how Woolf's aunt Anne Thackeray Ritchie provided the first model of a successful woman writer. The heart of Gill's study focuses on Woolf's immediate family: her mother Julia and sisters Stella, Laura, and Vanessa, all damaged in distinct ways by their patriarchal household. Gill argues that these early influences prepared Woolf for her later triumph within the Bloomsbury group, where she drew upon the strength and creativity of her female predecessors to carve out space for herself among men who initially dismissed women. The book reveals how Woolf transformed both herself and her literary circle.
Genres: biography, 20th-century, gender-studies, feminism, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family
Setting: Bloomsbury
Period: 19th-Century, 20th-Century
432 pages · Hardcover · Mariner Books