In the gentleman's letter (he is never named), he asks Woolf her opinion about how best to prevent war and offers some practical steps. War was looming in 1936–7 and the question was particularly pressing to Woolf, a committed pacifist. The entire essay is structured as a response to an educated gentleman who has written a letter asking Woolf to join his efforts to help prevent war. It was so popular, in fact, that pocket-sized editions of the novel were published for soldiers as leisure reading during World War II. The fiction portion became Woolf's most popular novel during her lifetime, The Years, which charts social change from 1880 to the time of publication through the lives of the Pargiter family. The non-fiction portion became Three Guineas.

When Woolf realised the idea of a 'novel–essay' wasn't working, she separated the two parts.

This unfinished manuscript was published in 1977 as The Pargiters. The book was to alternate between fictive narrative chapters and non-fiction essay chapters, demonstrating Woolf's views on war and women in both types of writing at once. Three Guineas is a book-length essay by Virginia Woolf, published in June 1938.Īlthough Three Guineas is a work of non-fiction, it was initially conceived as a 'novel–essay' which would tie up the loose ends left in her earlier work, A Room of One's Own.

The three guineas by virginia woolf