Biographical Notes: see the Norton Anthology of British Literature headnote....

• deaths—mom at 13, beloved sister at 15, dad at 22
• molested for years by 2 step-brothers (well into teens)
• openly bisexual in later years--husband understanding
• mental illness—manic depressive, suicidal, 4 major breakdowns, always worst when a book was finished; killed self in end
• Bloomsbury Group—circle of intellectual friends interested in arts: they thought that enjoying art and human intercourse was the highest end of society.   Group had important effect on avant-garde movement in art and literature
• Hogarth press—with husband, important for publishing new and experimental literary work; also published important work in politics, economics, psychoanalytic theory, and morel
• Major modern feminist—A Room of One's Own one of the seminal feminist works of 20th century
• Major modernist, known for poetic impressionism in her prose, for narrative experimentation, particularly in stream of consciousness or interior monologue

• "The Legacy" shows the woman's plight from a feminist perspective: men see wives only as extensions or reflections of themselves; men are egotistical, self-absorbed, and wrong: women are people too.
• "Professions for Women": argues feminist points using the novelist's method: most notably in the metaphorical "angel of the house" who Woolf had to murder repeatedly in "self-defense", and the "rock" of male expectations that made it difficult for her to write the truth about women's sexuality.
• "The Mark on the Wall": an exercise in stream of consciousness, follows the progress of a daydreaming mind in its natural associations from one subject to the next.  The wandering may all center on one fixed gripe, though: the rigidity of social conventions, which seem fixed at any given moment in time but are actually in flux--dependent on trends in fashion.