January 25, 1882 – Virginia Woolf born, leading English modernist author and feminist; best known for her novels To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway, and her essay A Room of One’s Own.

“… a woman must have money and a room of her own
if she is to write fiction.”

A Room of One’s Own was published in September 1929. It is based on a pair of lectures she gave at Newnham and Girton, the women’s colleges at Cambridge. It remains a testament to the injustice of limiting women to childbearing and domestic duties, denying women’s intellectual potential.

She focuses on literature, contending that the absence of female fiction is a result of a lack of opportunity rather than a distinct absence of talent. Social problems may shift shape, but the absence of opportunity still causes isolation and inequality.

To read an excerpt from A Room of One’s Own click: