The writer who worked standing up

Virginia Woolf did not always sit quietly at a conventional writing desk.

She used a tall, sloping desk that allowed her to write while standing.

The habit may have begun partly from childhood competition with her sister Vanessa, who painted at an easel.

The unusual position made writing a physical ritual as well as an intellectual one.

The detail changes the usual picture of Virginia Woolf. A famous life can look inevitable from a distance, but close up it is built from experiments, accidents and small decisions.

A memorable text is shaped not only by experience, but by deliberate revision.