"The focus of this study is on Virginia Woolf's vast output of essays and their relation to her fiction. Randi Saloman shows that it was by employing tools and methods drawn from the essay genre - such as fragmentation, stream-of-consciousness and dialogic engagement with the reader - that Woolf managed to leave behind the realism of the 19th-century novel." [Publisher's description].

Virginia Woolf was one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. Her involvement in the lively and controversial Bloomsbury Group was a significant part of both her personal and creative lives. This book explores Woolf's early life and family, the origins and activities of the Bloomsbury Group and Woolf's later career and influence.

Hermione Lee has created a portrait - rich in detail, epic in scope - that lets us know Virginia Woolf as we never have before: how she looked, how she sounded, how she dressed and behaved, how she wrote. This book gives us a vivid sense of the texture of Woolf's daily life - her houses and habits, money and servants, parties and talk. And through her own words and newly published letters between family members and friends, we gain a fresh and penetrating understanding.