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An accessible introduction to a writer whose work is of timeless significance and whose unconventional life is a continuous source of fascination.

In 1907, when she was twenty-five and not yet a published novelist, Virginia Stephen had everything still to prove. She felt herself to be at a crossroads: `I shall be miserable, or happy; a wordy sentimental creature, or a writer of such English as shall one day burn the pages. Today her prose is still blazing; perhaps it burns brighter than ever.

This is the story of how a determined young woman with a notebook became one of the greatest writers of all time. It is a story that sparkles with wit and friendship, language and love, wicked jokes and passionate appreciation of ordinary things. Hers was a life lived with intensity from moment to moment, courageous and defiant of convention, and shaped into the lasting patterns of art.

Considering each of Woolf s novels in context, this gripping account shows why, eighty years after her death, Virginia Woolf continues to haunt and inspire us.