u003ciu003eA Room of One's Ownu003c/iu003e, based on a lecture given at Girton College, Cambridge, is one of the great feminist polemics, ranging in its themes from Jane Austen and Carlotte Brontë to the silent fate of Shakespeare's gifted (imaginary) sister and the effects of poverty and sexual constraint on female creativity. u003cpu003eVirginia Woolf (1882-1941) is regarded as a major 20th century author and essayist, a key figure in literary history as a feminist and modernist, and the centre of 'The Bloomsbury Group'. This informal collective of artists and writers which included Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry, exerted a powerful influence over early twentieth-century British culture. Between 1925 and 1931 Virginia Woolf produced what are now regarded as her finest masterpieces, from u003ciu003eMrs Dallowayu003c/iu003e (1925) to the poetic and highly experimental novel u003ciu003eThe Wavesu003c/iu003e (1931). She also maintained an astonishing output of literary criticism, short fiction, journalism and biography, including the playfully subversive u003ciu003eOrlandou003c/iu003e (1928) and u003ciu003eA Room of One's Ownu003c/iu003e (1929) a passionate feminist essay. u003cpu003eIf you enjoyed u003ciu003eA Room of One's Ownu003c/iu003e, you might like Woolf's u003ciu003eOrlandou003c/iu003e, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. u003cpu003e'Probably the most influential piece of non-fictional writing by a woman in this century'u003cbru003eHermione Lee, u003ciu003eFinancial Timesu003c/iu003e
