A Room of One's Own – Virginia Woolf

"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

In this extended essay, Virginia Woolf examines the educational, social, and financial disadvantages that have stifled women's creativity throughout history. Creating the fictional character of Judith Shakespeare—William's equally gifted sister who commits suicide because she is denied an outlet for her genius—Woolf makes a passionate case for women's intellectual freedom.

This is a foundational text of feminist literary criticism. Woolf's lucid, witty, and persuasive argument transformed the way we understand the history of literature and the material conditions necessary for art to flourish.