A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf published in 1929, based on lectures she gave at two women's colleges in Cambridge in 1928. Woolf argues that a woman who wants to write fiction needs an income and a private space, and examines why so few women had been able to write in the past.
The argument
Woolf starts from a simple material fact: to write, one needs time, independence and a private space, all of which women had long been denied.
She describes being turned away from a college lawn and a library because she is a woman, and compares the comfortable lunch at a men's college with the plain dinner at a women's one.
Shakespeare's sister
Woolf imagines Judith, a sister of Shakespeare as gifted as he was, who would have had no education, no freedom and no chance to write.
Her tragic story shows how much talent depends on education, money and social conditions.
Women writers
Woolf reviews the work of women writers such as Aphra Behn, Jane Austen, the Brontës and George Eliot, and imagines the future of women's writing.
The essay became one of the founding texts of feminist literary criticism and is still widely read.
Anecdotes
Two colleges
The lectures were given in October 1928 at Newnham College and Girton College, then the two women's colleges of Cambridge.
Five hundred a year
In the essay, the narrator says that a legacy from an aunt, giving her five hundred pounds a year, mattered more to her than the vote, which women had won at about the same time.
Frequently asked questions
When was A Room of One's Own published?
In 1929.
What does Woolf say a woman needs to write?
An independent income and a private room.
Who is Judith Shakespeare?
An imaginary sister of Shakespeare invented by Woolf.