Moving freely between a detailed life-story and attempts to understand significant questions, this biography of Virginia Woolf addresses topics such as the impact of her childhood, the cause and nature of her madness and suicide, the truth about her marriage, her feelings for women, and her prejudices and obsessions. The author uses primary sources to show Woolf as occupying a distinct and even uneasy position within the Bloomsbury Set, and how the concerns of her work arise and develop. She is also presented as a radically sceptical, subversive, courageous feminist. Hermione Lee's other books include The Novels of Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, Philip Roth and Willa Cather.