Woolf , Adeline Virginia , 1882-1941 , née Stephen , novelist and critic x Stephen , Adeline Virginia x Woolf , Virginia

Adeline Virginia Stephen (always known by her middle name) was born in London in 1882, and educated at home. The deaths of her parents and two elder siblings before Virginia was 25 had a profound effect on her work. She wrote from an early age and, as young women, she and her sister Vanessa were founders of the Bloomsbury Group of young writers and artists. She married fellow writer Leonard Woolf in 1912. Woolf's novels include Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928), the latter partly inspired by her relationship with the writer Vita Sackville-West; she was also a prolific essayist, diarist and correspondent. She drowned herself in 1941, fearing another collapse in her often-fragile mental health. Her writing prefigured several later developments in 20th century fiction and is still acclaimed by many critics.