I first read Virginia Woolf as a college junior. I started with Mrs. Dalloway for a class and moved on to The Years on my own. My love for Woolf was immediate, but I knew my readings were only scratching the surface.
Over the years, I dipped into more Woolf — To the Lighthouse, A Room of One’s Own, Orlando — all just for fun. It wasn’t until I enrolled in a master’s program and made Woolf my focus that I truly took an in-depth approach to her and her writing.
But that doesn’t mean Woolf can’t be instructive for the common reader, as evidenced by my own experiences and those indicated by three recent pieces I found online. An article in Bustle, “18 Books Every Woman Should Read When She’s 18 (Because I Sure Wish I Had),” argues that every 18-year-old woman should read To the Lighthouse. And in Sydney’s Daily Life piece, “The Truth About Feminism,” Annabel Crabb cites A Room of One’s Own as an explicitly feminist piece she read as an 18-year-old, while a current-day college students cites the book as a feminist classic as well.
Alice Lowe
Catherine
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Paula Maggio
Stefano Rozzoni
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suzannebellamy1
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Vara Neverow
William Patrick Wend
Zoe Wolstenholme
I first read VW when Mrs Dalloway was assigned in a class called “British Literature Between the Wars.” I adored it so much that in my final semester, I ditched the copy editing class I would’ve needed to get my double major in English and Journalism so that I could take a small, intensive seminar on Woolf, in which we read all her major works of fiction and A Room of One’s Own. It was a wonderful experience – and her work seemed so vital, so relevant – that it made all my other courses seem like so much busy-work.
[…] Coming of age with Virginia Woolf. […]