A Room of One's Own
Virginia Woolf · 1929
The most important feminist essay of the 20th century and a formal masterpiece: an argument delivered through narrative, digression, and invention (Judith Shakespeare). Changed what essays could do politically.
The case against
Five hundred a year was an inheritance, and Woolf never quite notices that her prescription assumes one. The argument speaks to women of her class and education; working-class women barely enter the frame. Judith Shakespeare is invention doing the work of evidence. It persuades by charm and cadence, which is also a way of not arguing.
Essays · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
if this one calls to you, so will these →
