Editing Virginia Woolf (section)

==== Education ====
[[File:Julia and the children at lessons 1894.jpg|thumb|Virginia (third from left) with her mother and the Stephen children at their lessons, Talland House, {{circa|1894}}|alt=Julia Stephen at Talland House supervising Thoby, Vanessa, Virginia and Adrian doing their lessons, summer 1894]]

As was common at the time, Virginia's mother did not believe in formal education for her daughters.{{sfn|Harris|2011|p=18}} Instead, Virginia was educated in a piecemeal fashion by her parents. She also received piano lessons.<ref name=Curtis58/>{{sfn|Harris|2011|pp=18-19}} Virginia had unrestricted access to her father's vast library, exposing her to much of the literary canon.<ref name=hauntedintro/> This resulted in a greater depth of reading than any of her Cambridge contemporaries.<ref name="Rosenbaum1/130"/> She later recalled: {{blockquote|Even today there may be parents who would doubt the wisdom of allowing a girl of fifteen the free run of a large and quite unexpurgated library. But my father allowed it. There were certain facts – very briefly, very shyly he referred to them. Yet "Read what you like", he said, and all his books...were to be had without asking.{{sfn|Woolf|1932a|p=72}}}}

Beginning in 1897, Virginia received private tutoring in Classical Greek and Latin. One of her tutors was [[Clara Pater]], who was instrumental to her classical education, while another, [[Janet Elizabeth Case|Janet Case]], became a lasting friend and introduced her to the [[Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom|suffrage movement]].{{sfn|Lee|1997a|pp=141,275-276}} Virginia also attended lectures at the [[King's College London|King's College]] Ladies' Department.{{sfn|Harris|2011|p=33}}

Although Virginia could not attend Cambridge, she was profoundly influenced by her brother Thoby's experiences there. When Thoby went to Trinity in 1899 he became part of an intellectual circle of young men, including [[Clive Bell]], [[Lytton Strachey]], [[Leonard Woolf]] (whom Virginia would later marry), and [[Saxon Sydney-Turner]]. He introduced his sisters to this circle at the [[Trinity May Ball]] in 1900.{{sfn|Todd|1999|p=12}} This circle formed a reading group that they named the Midnight Society, to which the Stephen sisters would later be invited.<ref name=Moggridge217/>