Ward's Book of Days.
Pages of interesting anniversaries.
What happened on this day in history.
MARCH 28th
On this day in history in 1941, died Virginia Woolf.
Woolf was a novelist, a critic and a leading member of The Bloomsbury Group, a society whose ethos was the rejection of Victorian values.
Woolf made a name for herself as novelist in the Modernist style using the ‘stream of consciousness’ technique. In her novel Mrs Dalloway, Woolf uses the banal setting of a society lady preparing for a party to portray the inner feelings of her characters, including a soldier from The First World War who has suffered horrendous mental damage.
In To The Lighthouse, Woolf describes her character Mrs Ramsey through her own thought processes whilst in Jacob’s Room, the reader obtains an insight into the eponymous protagonist, who does not appear in the novel, through the thoughts of other characters.
Strangely, Woolf could not find a publisher for her early works but was inspired to create her own publishing company, The Hogarth Press. This organisation consisted of Woolf and several of her associates who printed volumes on a hand operated press.
Wolfe was only able to produce her great work in intervals between severe bouts of manic depression. Shortly after the outbreak of The Second World War, Woolf succumbed to an attack of melancholia and drowned herself in the River Ouse. Her ashes were buried in the garden of her home, Monk’s House (Rodmell, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 3HF) which is now a museum of Woolf and her works and is open to visitors.
Click here for critical works on Virginia Woolf.
©2006 Ward’s Book of Days