This essay was based on two talks on ‘Women and Fiction’ given by Virginia Woolf in Cambridge in 1928.

A woman needs financial independence and privacy if she is to be a writer. The story of Shakespeare’s sister shows the obstacles in women’s paths. In the past not many women were strong enough to say, ‘Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt, that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.’

The source was PG Australia.