While <strong>Virginia Woolf</strong> one of our centurys most brilliant and mercurialwriters has had no shortage of biographers none has seemed as naturallys... » 

While Virginia Woolf one of our centurys most brilliant and mercurialwriters has had no shortage of biographers none has seemed as naturallysuited to the task as Hermione Lee. Subscribing to Virginia Woolfs own beliefin the fluidity and elusiveness of identity Lee comes at her subject from amultitude of perspectives producing a richly layered portrait of the writerand the woman that leaves all of her complexities and contradictions intact.Such issues as sexual abuse mental illness and suicide are brought intobalance with the immensity of her literary achievement her heroic commitmentto her work her generosity and wit and her sanity and strength.It is not often that biography offers the satisfactions of great fiction butthis is clearly what Hermione Lee has achieved. Accessible intelligent anddeeply pleasurable to read her Virginia Woolf will undoubtedly take its placeas the standard biography for years to come. «