Virginia Woolf remembered with Google Doodle on her 136th birthday – here are the iconic author’s best quotes and books
The much-loved novelist's influence on the literary world is still felt more than 75 years after her tragic death
VIRGINIA Woolf is widely regarded as one of Britain's greatest novelists, whose influence on the literary world continues to be felt to this very day.
As Google celebrates the much-loved author on her 136th birthday with one of its Google Doodles, here is what you need to know about her life, work and tragic death.
Who was Virginia Woolf?
Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen in Kensington, London on January 25, 1882.
Her parents were the historian and critic Sir Leslie Stephen and the celebrated beauty Julia Stephen, who raised their daughter in a literate, well-connected household.
Upon the death of her mother in 1895, Woolf suffered the first of the mental health episodes which blighted her life, including a more serious breakdown when her father passed away in 1904.
She began writing at an early age, having her first piece published in December 1904, and writing for the Times Literary Supplement from the following year.
Along with her husband, Leonard, whom she married in 1912, she became part of an influential group of writers known as the Bloomsbury Group prominent in London during the early 20th century.
Woolf's first novel, The Voyage Out, was published in 1915, and her subsequent writings established her as one of the leading novelists and essayists of her time.
She published prolifically between the First and Second World Wars, with her final novel Between The Acts issued just after her death in 1941.
After producing the final manuscript for that posthumous work, Woolf fell into a depression, her diaries of the time hinting at a growing obsession with death.
On March 28 1941 she drowned herself in the River Ouse near her home, Monk's House in Lewes, Sussex – her body was not found for three weeks.
The 59-year-old's heartbreaking suicide note to her husband began: "Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again.
"I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time."
Woolf's legacy has endured well beyond her tragic death, with the author's importance coming to the fore with the rise of the feminist movement in the 1970s.
The famous play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Ablee, its title a play on the Disney nursery rhyme, inspired a film version starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
Nicole Kidman won an Oscar for portraying Woolf in the 2002 film The Hours, an adaptation of Michael Cunningham's 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
The National Portrait Gallery ran an exhibition in her honour for three months in 2014, and she has been cited as an influence on writers such as Margaret Atwood and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Google created a commemorative Doodle to mark Woolf's 136th birthday on January 25, 2018, using an image by London-based illustrator Louise Pomeroy.
What were Virginia Woolf's most famous quotes?
- "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." (A Room of One's Own)
- "Though we see the same world, we see it through different eyes." (Three Guineas)
- "Never pretend that the things you haven't got are not worth having." (A Moment's Liberty)
- "Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners." (A Room of One's Own)
- "I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman." (A Room of One's Own)
- "If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people." (The Moment and Other Essays)
Which books did Virginia Woolf write?
In total, Woolf published nine novels:
- The Voyage Out (1915)
- Night and Day (1919)
- Jacob's Room (1922)
- Mrs Dalloway (1925)
- To the Lighthouse (1927)
- Orlando (1928)
- The Waves (1931)
- The Years (1937)
- Between the Acts (1941)
She's also well known for her non-fiction, particularly the book-length essays A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas, published in 1929 and 1938 respectively.
What is a Google Doodle?
In 1998, the search engine founders Larry and Sergey drew a stick figure behind the second 'o' of Google as a message to that they were out of office at the Burning Man festival and with that, Google Doodles were born.
The company decided that they should decorate the logo to mark cultural moments and it soon became clear that users really enjoyed the change to the Google homepage.
In that same year, a turkey was added to Thanksgiving and two pumpkins appeared as the 'o's for Halloween the following year.
Now, there is a full team of doodlers, illustrators, graphic designers, animators and classically trained artists who help create what you see on those days.
Among the Doodles published in recent months were ones commemorating German scientist Robert Koch, Jan Ingenhousz (who discovered photosynthesis) and the 50th anniversary of kids coding languages being introduced.
Earlier in the year, the search giant celebrated the 2017 Autumn Equinox , which marked the official ending of summer and the coming of autumn.