Virginia Woolf

Hermione Lee sees Virginia Woolf afresh in her historical setting and as a vital figure for our times. Her book moves freely between a richly detailed life-story and new attempts to understand crucial questions - the impact of her childhood the cause and nature of her madness and suicide the truth about her marriage her feelings for women her prejudies and obsessions. This is a vivid close-up portrait returning to primary sources and showing Woolf as occupying a distinct even uneasy position with 'Bloomsbury'. It is a writer's life illustrating how the concerns of her work arise and develop and a political life which establishes Woolf as a radically sceptical subversive courageous feminist. Incorporating newly discovered sources and illustrated with photos and drawings never used before this biography is a revelation -informed intelligent and moving.