Virginia Woolf was born in 1882 to a wealthy English family. The upper-class status of Woolf’s family informs her work, which often focuses on educated and privileged characters. Woolf’s father, Leslie Stephen, was a writer and a key intellectual influence on Woolf. After the death of her mother, Julia Stephen, Woolf experienced recurring bouts of mental illness. Modern psychiatrists believe that Woolf had bipolar disorder, although her childhood sexual abuse is also considered a major influence on her mental health. The author died by suicide in 1941.

Today, critics consider Woolf a major figure of Modernist and feminist literature, as well as one of the most important writers of the 20th century. She is best known for her fiction but was also a prolific writer of essays, plays, and short stories. Her most famous works are the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927). Monday and Tuesday was published early in Woolf’s career yet reflected the many literary devices she would employ in future texts, such as stream-of-consciousness narration. Like much of her work, “Kew Gardens” explores class structure in post-Industrial era England, and The Connection Between Humanity and Nature.

“A Sketch of the Past,” a nonfiction work that serves as both personal

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