Virginia Woolf gave her speech about Shakespeare's sister in 1928, the same year in which women in the United Kingdom regained the right to vote. Woolf's family had her educated at home, even though British universities began admitting women in 1878. By the time Woolf began working for the Times Literary Supplement in 1910, Nellie Bly had proved that women could succeed as professional journalists. Despite this progress, Woolf experienced so many difficulties in making her life as a writer that she had no difficulty imagining how prejudice and lack of opportunity would have stifled Judith, Shakespeare's imaginary sister. This passage is an example of the historical approach to literary criticism because it relates Woolf's writing to her life and times.

True Or False