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