A Room of One's Own

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf, first published in 1929, is a book-length essay that Woolf modeled after a series of her at the University of Cambridge. A Room of One’s Own is considered a classic and exemplary piece of modernist criticism that questions traditional values. It examines the topic of “women and fiction”–women characters in fiction; the great women authors in English history who wrote fiction; and, more abstractly, “the fiction that is written about” women by men (18). Woolf claims that women underachieve in patriarchal society because of self-proliferating systems of oppression. Women, Woolf argues, are impoverished both financially (at the time of publication, they are not allowed to earn or hold wealth) and mentally. For women to be valued in the literary world, Woolf says, they need a room of their own and a reliable income to produce authentic works of fiction.

This guide references the Harcourt 1989 e-book edition. This book and guide contain brief discussions of mental health conditions and suicide, as well as physical violence against women.

Summary

The text is divided into six chapters, most of which are delivered via an imaginary narrator, Mary Beton. Woolf uses this narrator to establish a plot wherein readers follow Mary Beton on her journey to understand the topic “women and fiction.