A Room of One's Own

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf imagines that Shakespeare had a sister: a sister equal to Shakespeare in talent, equal in genius, but whose legacy is radically different. This imaginary woman never writes a word and dies by her own hand, her genius unexpressed. But if only she had found the means to create, urges Woolf, she would have reached the same heights as her immortal sibling.

In this foundational work of literary criticism, Virginia Woolf takes on the establishment, using her gift for language to dissect the structures of patriarchy and give a voice to those who have none.