About the lecture

In this module, we provide an overview of Virginia Woolf’s life, thinking in particular about: (i) her early childhood, especially the influence of her parents on her later life; (ii) her beginnings as a writer and literary critic as part of the Bloomsbury Group; (iii) her success with novels such as Mrs Dalloway (1925) and To The Lighthouse (1927); and (iv) her mental issues that led to her untimely death in 1941.

About the lecturer

Madeleine Davies is a Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Reading. She specialises in Women's Writing and Feminist Theory, particularly the work of Virginia Woolf and Margaret Atwood. She has published widely on Margaret Atwood in particular, including 'Margaret Atwood's Female Bodies' in C. A. Howells (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood (2006).