Moments of Being by Virginia Woolf is a collection of five autobiographical essays that were published posthumously. They span over three decades. The earliest essay, “Reminiscences,” was written in 1907, and the last, "Am I a Snob?" was completed in 1940. Nevertheless, they are all written in Woolf’s iconic stream-of-consciousness style.

Woolf is among the twentieth-century writers credited with helping to develop this literary style, in which the individual thought processes of a character are portrayed almost in the form of an internal monologue where the character essentially addresses themself. This style represented a marked departure from traditional literary style in use up until then, where most of the narrative is conveyed through a first-person or narrator’s address to the reader or to a third-person.

Thus, using this stream-of-consciousness style throughout the essays, Virginia Woolf voices her internal feelings in Moments of Being, just as if she were one of her own fictional characters in one of her novels. This literary device enables her writings in the essay to break through any linear time barrier, to move back and forth between the present and the past and even the future. For instance, “A Sketch of the Past” opens with “Two days ago—Sunday 16 April to be precise,” but Woolf soon launches into her memories and is back in the past:

I begin: the first memory. This was of red and purple flowers on a black back ground—my mother’s dress; and she was sitting either in a train or in an omnibus and I was on her lap.

A few moments later, Woolf is no longer on the train, but at her family’s summer home, Talland House in St. Ives. A few paragraphs later and she is no longer (at least temporarily) in St. Ives, but in Garsington observing Julian Morrell, who “put on a new dress and scampered round and round like a hare.” This memory of Julian leads to Virginia’s thoughts about the importance of beauty in her family and immediately thereafter to thoughts of her father, who was “Spartan, ascetic, puritanical.” Her movement across places and times allows her writing to flow and draw the reader in.

Not surprisingly, given the stream-of-consciousness style and the fact that the essays were written to form a foundation for a future autobiography, the essays are extremely self-reflective and also draw strongly from Woolf’s interaction with other writers and artists. Specifically, Virginia Woolf belonged to a group of artists, writers, philosophers, and intellectuals who came to be known for the section of central London in which they lived and worked: Bloomsbury. The discussions and philosophies that the Bloomsbury members shared informed the work of Virginia Woolf, including the essays in Moments of Being.

The Bloomsbury group met frequently, and often their meetings were held at the home that Woolf shared with her sister, Vanessa Bell, and her brothers, meaning that she was a frequent participant in the conversations. Thus, much of Woolf’s writing was influenced by the discussions and thoughts of her fellow Bloomsbury members.

For the most part, they came from wealthy backgrounds and were well-educated. They were a group of socially advantaged people. However, in many ways, they eschewed elitist views (although one of the essays in Moments of Being, “Am I a Snob?” questions the negative connotations of being a snob). In fact, they shared a sense of rebelliousness against the prevalent conventions of the times. They were liberal in a variety of ways—in their thinking and in their lifestyles, as well as politically.

In fact, one of the essays in Moments of Being , titled “Old...