Virginia Woolf was born in 1882. She was educated at home with her sister, Vanessa, in a literary environment. Following the deaths of her parents, she moved with her siblings to 46 Gordon Square, which became the first meeting place of the circle of writers and artists known as the Bloomsbury Group. In 1912 Virginia married Leonard Woolf, with whom she later established the Hogarth Press, and published her first novel, 'The Voyage Out'. It was followed by eight others, including 'Mrs Dalloway' and 'To the Lighthouse', which together establish her as one of the most important modernists of the twentieth century. Woolf suffered from mental illness throughout her life and committed suicide in 1941.

'To the Lighthouse', considered by many to be Virginia Woolf’s finest novel, is a remarkably original work, showing the thoughts and actions of the members of a family and their guests on two separate occasions, ten years apart. The setting is Mr and Mrs Ramsay’s house on a Scottish island, where they traditionally take their summer holidays, overlooking a bay with a lighthouse.

An experimental work that pushes the limits of what we know about the world and ourselves, Virginia Woolf’s 'To the Lighthouse' is one of the most beautifully crafted of all novels written in the English language.