Description

Introduction

0.1　Virginia Woolf and Her Novels

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), famous British novelist, critic, and essayist, was born in a middle-class intellectual family in London. She is known for her unique literary style and feminist views. Her father, Sir Leslie Stephen, is a renowned scholar, biographer, and editor who served as the first editor of The National Portrait Gallery, while her mother, Julia Jackson, is kind, gentle, and talented in art. Virginia spent most of her childhood in a three-story mansion at Hyde Park Gate, where she was not formally educated but was exposed to her father’s elite cultural circle and extensive library, cultivating her distinct aesthetic taste and deep literary foundation. Every summer vacation, the Stephen family would enjoy a different life in the countryside and by the sea, which left a profound impression on young Virginia and was reflected in her later works. In 1891, at the age of 9, Virginia and her brother Thoby created a weekly newspaper, “Hyde Park Gate News”, which they continued for four years. Despite its childish and amusing content, it showed Virginia’s extraordinary writing talent. While Stephen was alive, he often took Virginia on tours of the residences of great people located in the city or countryside, teaching her writing techniques and principles. Stephen passed away in 1904, and Virginia’s feelings towards her father were conflicted: