A Contemporary Classics hardcover edition of Virginia Woolf’s classic plea for a world in which women are free to use their gifts. In this influential extended essay, Woolf outlines what women need in order to fully make use of their innate abilities. Using provocative images and memorable thought experiments—including the fictional Judith Shakespeare, who is as talented as her brother William but limited in ways he was not—Woolf decries the means by which women have been held back throughout history and in her own time. Woolf urges both men and women to break free of the limitations of their roles and develop new traditions in which they can explore the depths and peaks of human experience through writing about ordinary things and ordinary people—a process in which she herself was a pioneer. A Room of One's Own, first published in 1929, has been a rallying cry for generations of women and continues to be an inspiration in our own century. Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.