Three Guineas

In Three Guineas, first published in June, 1938 (as the threat of war between Britain and Nazi Germany was looming larger day by day) Virginia Woolf set about answering three questions. How should war be prevented? Why does the government not support education for women? Why are women prevented from engaging in professional work? Many at the time saw the matter of how best to prevent war as entirely unconnected with “women’s issues”; Woolf linked together the answers, and connected them too with discussions of such matters as social class, in what has come to be acknowledged as a landmark both of feminist and of anti-war writing. Included in the first and other early editions—and integral to the work—was a series of five photographs of men of high position wearing garments that mark their status (Woolf does not identify the individuals portrayed, but—as researchers have shown—they would have been readily identifiable to many readers at the time). Unlike most editions available today, this facsimile edition includes the illustrations as well as the text of the original.