An exploration of Virginia Woolf's relationship with grief, illness and creativity against a framework of classical narratives, this book investigates the importance of ancient Greek literature to the development of her emotional, intellectual and creative processes. Taking a holistic, interdisciplinary approach which is part life-writing, part literary criticism, Elizabeth Gourd engages with Woolf's diaries, letters, memoirs and essays to excavate the author's thought processes and creative development. Forensic in approach, the work is structured around the pillars of Greek literature - tragedy, heroism and voyage - and whilst it draws upon the majority of Woolf's oeuvre, Grief, Illness and Classical Narratives in Virginia Woolf makes case studies of The Voyage Out, Mrs Dalloway and The Waves to foreground the lived experience of the author and establish new connections between her life and work and her reading of Greek.

While previous scholars have discussed the Woolf's writing as an imaginative space for her to work through her trauma, this book considers how the texts she read provided emotional and intellectual frameworks for difficult experiences, allowing her to think through and interpret them in a manner that is both distanced and immersive. A lively and innovative account of Woolf's texts, writing processes, and the relation between writing and her biography, Gourd brings new energy to the evaluation of classical Greek myth and tragedy as shaping forces in Woolf's fiction.