Google Doodle- Happy 136th Birthday The Greatest Novelist Of Britain, Virginia

As Google celebrates the much-loved author on her 136th birthday, here's what you need to know about her life, work and tragic death.

Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen in Kensington, London on January 25, 1882.

Her parents were the historian and critic Sir Leslie Stephen and the celebrated beauty Julia Stephen, who raised their daughter in a literate, well-connected household.

Upon the death of her mother in 1895, Woolf suffered the first of the mental health episodes which blighted her life, including a more serious breakdown when her father passed away in 1904.

She began writing at an early age, having her first piece published in December 1904, and writing for the Times Literary Supplement from the following year.

Along with her husband, Leonard, whom she married in 1912, she became part of an influential group of writers known as the Bloomsbury Group prominent in London during the early 20th century.

Woolf's first novel, The Voyage Out, was published in 1915, and her subsequent writings established her as one of the leading novelists and essayists of her time.
After publishing her first novel in 1915 Woolf wrote prolifically until her death.

She published prolifically between the First and Second World Wars, with her final novel Between The Acts issued just after her death in 1941.

After producing the final manuscript for that posthumous work, Woolf fell into a depression, her diaries of the time hinting at a growing obsession with death.

On March 28 1941 she drowned herself in the River Ouse near her home, Monk's House in Lewes, Sussex – her body was not found for three weeks.

The 59-year-old's heartbreaking suicide note to her husband began: "Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again.