Virginia Woolf (1882—1941) was an English writer whose novels, which often experimented with form, exercised a profound influence on the genre. Among her most famous works of fiction are To the Lighthouse, Orlando, and Mrs. Dalloway and her book of essays, A Room of One's Own, is one of the best-known works of literary and social criticism in the English language. Edward Mendelson is the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University and the literary executor of the Estate of W. H. Auden. His books include The Things That Matter—about seven novels by Mary Shelley, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf—and Early Auden and Later Auden. He lives in New York.