Virginia Stephen and Vanessa Stephen playing cricket

Photographer unknown

Virginia Stephen and Vanessa Stephen playing cricket

St. Ives, ca. 1893–94

Until their mother’s death in 1895, Woolf and her siblings spent the summer months at Talland House, their country home in the seaside town of St. Ives in Cornwall. Here, an eleven- or twelve-year-old Woolf (at left) and her sister, Vanessa, play cricket. Later, Woolf drew heavily on her childhood memories of her time on the Cornish coast for some of her most significant work, including To the Lighthouse (1927) and The Waves (1931).