Women and Writing Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf is known for her contributions to 20th-century literature and her essays, as well as the influence she has had on literary, particularly feminist criticism. A number of authors have stated that their work was influenced by her, including Margaret Atwood, Michael Cunningham,[v] Gabriel García Márquez,[w] and Toni Morrison.[x] Her iconic image[338] is instantly recognisable from the Beresford portrait of her at twenty (at the top of this page) to the Beck and Macgregor portrait in her mother's dress in Vogue at 44 (see image) or Man Ray's cover of Time magazine (see image) at 55.[339] More postcards of Woolf are sold by the National Portrait Gallery, London than of any other person.[340] Her image is ubiquitous, and can be found on products ranging from tea towels to T-shirts.[339]

Virginia Woolf is studied around the world, with organisations devoted to her, such as the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain,[341] and The Virginia Woolf Society of Japan. In addition, trusts—such as the Asham Trust—encourage writers in her honour.[177] Although she had no descendants, a number of her extended family are notable.[342]

Monuments and memorials

In 2013, Woolf was honoured by her alma mater of King's College London with the opening of the Virginia Woolf Building on Kingsway, with a plaque commemorating her time there and her contributions (see image),[343][344] together with this exhibit depicting her accompanied by a quotation "London itself perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play & a story & a poem" from her 1926 diary.[345] Busts of Virginia Woolf have been erected at her home in Rodmell, Sussex and at Tavistock Square, London, where she lived between 1924 and 1939.

In 2014, she was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighbourhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields".[346]

Woolf Works, a women's co-working space in Singapore, opened in 2014 and was named after her in tribute to the essay A Room of One's Own;[347] it also has many other things named after it (see the essay's article). A campaign was launched in 2018 by Aurora Metro Arts and Media to erect a statue of Woolf in Richmond, where she lived for 10 years. The statue shows her on a bench overlooking the river Thames.[348] In November 2022 the statue, created by sculptor Laury Dizengremel, was unveiled.[349] It is the first full-size statue of Woolf.[350]