"I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past."

(Virginia Woolf)

Adeline Virginia Stephen was born on January the 25th 1882, and was one of the first writers to start Modernism in literature, with classics such as Mrs Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927). She was a member of the well known Bloomsbury group, a group of intelletcuals which used to meet in London's Bloomsbury area, from the early 1900's until the 1930's. They demostrated to be extremely open minded for their time, and sexually free, as Virginia herself was bisexual and had a passionate relationship with another group member, Vita Sackville-West. Among many, she wrote a classic of gay fiction, Orlando (1927), stating that love knows no gender. 

"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

(A room of one's own, Virginia Woolf, 1929)