of women and fiction. Her remarkable words are preserved for future generations of women in A Room of One's

Own. This essay is the "first manifesto of the modern feminist movement" (Samuelson), and has been called "a

notable preamble to a kind of feminine Declaration of Independence" (Muller 34). Woolf writes that her modest

goal for this ground-breaking essay is to "encourage the young women--they seem to get fearfully depressed"

(qtd. in Gordon xiv). This treatise on the history of women's writings, reasons for the scarcity of great women

artists, and suggestions for future literary creators and creations accomplishes far more than simple inspiration and

motivation for young writers. Woolf questions the "effect . . . poverty [has] on fiction" and the "conditions . . .

necessary for the creation of works of art" (25), and she persuasively argues that economics are as important as

talent and inspiration in the creative process. She emphatically states and, with brilliant fiction, supports her

thesis that every woman "must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction" (4)

Woolf rejects the reigning supposition that it is "impossible for any woman, past, present, or to come, to have the

of mind evidenced in Woolf's examples of creative genius, William Shakespeare and Jane Austen, requires that the

'the common sitting room,' "to a room of her own" (157). Mary's "stupefaction, wonder and bewilderment" (Woolf

In spite of the wealth of misinformation published about women, there is only a smattering of historical facts

foreshadows her intent to generate entirely new feminine traditions and searching for answers" (Marcus, Virginia

"creation of weakness searching for succor, not of strength searching for a victim" (193). This flawed system

human beings [who] are attached to grossly material things" (42). The women who inhabited Britain's past lived in

Rosenman, Ellen Bayuk. The Invisible Presence: Virginia Woolf and the Mother-Daughter Relationship. Baton

Some common words found in the essay are:
Patrick McGee, John Burt, Independence Muller, Jane Austen, British Museum, Peggy Kamuf, Judith Shakespeare, Marcus Virginia, Ellen Rosenman, Susan Gorsky, virginia woolf, one's own, women writers, , writes woolf, judith shakespeare, literary tradition, marcus virginia, jane austen, british museum, marcus virginia 145, bloomington indiana 1987, novel forum fiction, york harvest-harcourt 1989, rosenman writes woolf,
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Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)