Woolf, (Adeline) Virginia

Woolf, (Adeline) Virginia (1882–1941),
English novelist and critic. Woolf's influential essay in feminist criticism A Room of one's Own (1929) speculates on the obstacles that might have confronted Shakespeare's sister had she been as talented as the Bard. More comically her mock-historical novel Orlando (1928) draws on As You Like It, depicting an immortal Elizabethan courtier and admirer of Shakespeare who, Ganymede-like, becomes a woman.

Nicola Watson