A Sketch of the Past

"A Sketch of the Past" is an autobiographical essay written by Virginia Woolf in 1939. It was written as a break from writing her biography of Roger Fry, English artist and critic, and fellow member of The Bloomsbury Group. It was later edited and posthumously published by Leonard Woolf and now can be found in "Moments of Being", a collection of her autobiographical writing. Woolf's youth was shadowed by series of emotional shocks. Gerald Duckworth, her half-brother, sexually abused her. In 'Sketch of the Past' (1939) she wrote: "I can remember the feel of his hands going under my clothes; going firmly and steadily lower and lower, I remember how I hoped that he would stop; how I stiffened and wriggled as his hand approached my private parts. But he did not stop."