A DESK OF HER OWN
A DESK OF HER OWN Cambridge, United Kingdom, October 1928 In October 1928, Virginia Woolf was invited to give a lecture at Newnham College (my College in Cambridge), a speech which was later published in the book A Room of One’s Own. In its opening chapters, Woolf recounts how she decided to walk along the grass, always following the curve of the River Cam, until she found a place to sit. All the land around river, to the very last blade of grass before reaching the riverbank, belongs to the Colleges: St. Catharine’s College, King’s College, St. John’s College, and so forth. Virginia Woolf, therefore, found herself sitting on someone else’s property. To sit on the grass, one needed to belong to the College that owned it—a privilege unattainable for her at the time. With the exception of Newnham and Girton, women were not admitted to the Colleges. Newnham College was founded in 1871 in a small rented house by Henry Sidgwick, where five studen...