A Room of One's Own

Widely acknowledged as a pioneering text of the women’s movement, A Room of One’s Own is one of Virginia Woolf’s most influential works. Couched in entertaining fiction, this book-length essay investigates both the patriarchal realities of the present day, and history of discrimination against women and the stifling effect of such prejudice on women’s creativity. The prescient concluding words of the dust jacket of the first British edition (which in all probability were written by the author herself) state that: “an attempt is made ... to forecast what effect comparative freedom and independence will have upon women’s artistic work in the future.” 

The first comprehensive and authoritative edition of this foundational text of the feminist movement, and one of the most significant works in her own canon, this timely and important new edition of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own adopts the complete text of the first British edition published in London on October 24, 1929. Additional features include a comprehensive introduction detailing the process and composition of Woolf’s original essay and the evolution of its subsequent publication history. Extensive explanatory notes add further illumination by revealing the essay’s broader political, historical, social, and literary contexts. A comprehensive appendix also highlights variations between each of the British editions that appeared in Woolf’s lifetime and the first American edition, alterations made in the first British edition from Woolf’s uncorrected proofs, and current editorial emendations incorporated in this new edition.