Rachel Bowlby.

—— A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas, ed. Morag Shiach.

—— To the Lighthouse, ed. David Bradshaw.

—— The Voyage Out, ed. Lorna Sage.

—— The Waves, ed. Gillian Beer.

—— The Years, ed. Hermione Lee, with notes by Sue Ashbee.

A CHRONOLOGY OF VIRGINIA WOOLF

 

Life

Historical and Cultural Background

1882

(25 Jan.) Adeline Virginia Stephen (VW) born at 22 Hyde Park Gate, London.

Deaths of Darwin, Trollope, D. G. Rossetti; Joyce born; Stravinsky born; Married Women’s Property Act; Society for Psychical Research founded.

1895

(5 May) Death of mother, Julia Stephen; VW’s first breakdown occurs soon afterwards.

Death of T. H. Huxley; X-rays discovered; invention of the cinematograph; wireless telegraphy invented; arrest, trials, and conviction of Oscar Wilde.

 

 

Wilde, The Importance of Being

Earnest and An Ideal Husband

Wells, The Time Machine

1896

(Nov.) Travels in France with sister Vanessa.

Death of William Morris; Daily Mail started.

Hardy, Jude the Obscure

Housman, A Shropshire Lad

1897

(10 April) Marriage of half-sister Stella; (19 July) death of Stella; (Nov.) VW learning Greek and history at King’s College, London.

Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee;

Tate Gallery opens.

Stoker, Dracula

James, What Maisie Knew

1898

 

Deaths of Gladstone and Lewis Carroll; radium and plutonium discovered.

Wells, The War of the Worlds

1899

(30 Oct.) VW’s brother Thoby goes up to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he forms friendships with Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf, Clive Bell, and others of the future Bloomsbury Group (VW’s younger brother Adrian follows him to Trinity in 1902).

Boer War begins. Births of Bowen and Coward.

Symons, The Symbolist Movement in Literature

James, The Awkward Age

Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams

1900

 

Deaths of Nietzsche, Wilde, and Ruskin; Daily Express started;

Planck announces quantum theory;

Boxer Rising.

Conrad, Lord Jim

1901

 

Death of Queen Victoria; accession of Edward VII; first wireless communication between Europe and USA; ‘World’s Classics’ series begun. Kipling, Kim

1902

VW starts private lessons in Greek with Janet Case.

End of Boer War; British Academy founded; Encyclopaedia Britannica (10th edn.); TLS started

Bennett, Anna of the Five Towns

James, The Wings of the Dove

1903

 

Deaths of Gissing and Spencer;

Daily Mirror started; Wright

brothers make their first aeroplane

flight; Emmeline Pankhurst founds

Women’s Social and Political Union.

Butler, The Way of All Flesh

James, The Ambassadors

Moore, Principia Ethica

1904

(22 Feb.) Death of father, Sir Leslie Stephen. In spring, VW travels to Italy with Vanessa and friend Violet Dickinson. (10 May) VW has second nervous breakdown and is ill for three months. Moves to 46, Gordon Square. (14 Dec.) VW’s first publication appears.

Deaths of Christina Rossetti and Chekhov; Russo-Japanese War;

Entente Cordiale between Britain and France.

Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill

Conrad, Nostromo

James, The Golden Bowl

1905

(March, April) Travels in Portugal and Spain. Writes reviews and teaches once a week at Morley College, London.

Einstein, Special Theory of

Relativity; Sartre born

Shaw, Major Barbara and Man and

Superman

Wells, Kipps

Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread

1906

(Sept. and Oct.) Travels in Greece. (20 Nov.) Death of Thoby Stephen.

Death of Ibsen; Beckett born;

Liberal Government elected;

Campbell-Bannerman Prime Minister;

launch of HMS

Dreadnought.

1907

(7 Feb.) Marriage of Vanessa to Clive Bell. VW moves with Adrian to 29 Fitzroy Square. At work on her first novel, ‘Melymbrosia’ (working title for The Voyage Out).

Auden born; Anglo-Russian Entente.

Synge, The Playboy of the Western World

Conrad, The Secret Agent

Forster, The Longest Journey

1908

(Sept.) Visits Italy with the Bells.

Asquith Prime Minister; Old Age Pensions Act; Elgar’s First Symphony.

Bennett, The Old Wives’ Tale

Forster, A Room with a View

Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday

1909

(17 Feb.) Lytton Strachey proposes marriage. (30 March) First meets Lady Ottoline Morrell. (April) Visits Florence. (Aug.) Visits Bayreuth and Dresden.

Death of Meredith; ‘People’s Budget’;

English Channel flown by Blériot.

Wells, Tono-Bungay

Masterman, The Condition of England

Marinetti, Futurist Manifesto

1910

(Jan.) Works for women’s suffrage. (June–Aug.) Spends time in a nursing home at Twickenham

Deaths of Edward VII, Tolstoy, and Florence Nightingale; accession of George V; Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th edn.); Roger Fry’s

Post-Impressionist Exhibition.

Bennett, Clayhanger

Forster, Howards End

Yeats, The Green Helmet

Wells, The History of Mr Polly

1911

(April) Travels to Turkey, where Vanessa is ill. (Nov.) Moves to 38 Brunswick Square, sharing house with Adrian, John Maynard Keynes, Duncan Grant, and Leonard Woolf.

National Insurance Act; Suffragetteriots.

Conrad, Under Western Eyes

Wells, The New Machiavelli

Lawrence, The White Peacock

1912

Rents Asheham House.(Feb.) Spends some days in Twickenham nursing home. (10 Aug.) Marriage to Leonard Woolf. Honeymoon in Provence, Spain, and Italy. (Oct.) Moves to 13 Clifford’s Inn, London.

Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition; Suffragettes active; strikes by dockers, coal-miners, and transport workers; Irish Home Rule Bill again rejected by Lords; sinking of SS Titanic; death of Scott in the Antarctic; Daily Herald started. English translations of Chekhov and Dostoevsky begin to appear.

1913

(March) MS of The Voyage Out delivered to publisher.