How did Virginia commit suicide

1. What every report repeats — the core claim that demands attention

Every authoritative summary of Woolf’s death converges on the same core facts: on an early spring day in 1941, Virginia Woolf walked into the River Ouse near her Rodmell home after filling her overcoat pockets with stones, and subsequently drowned; the event is described explicitly as a suicide in standard references ^{[1] [2]}. Reports consistently cite the handwritten letter she left for Leonard Woolf as the primary contemporaneous explanation for her action, in which she stated she believed she was “going mad” again and feared she could no longer carry on, language closely reproduced in biographical treatments ^{[4] [5]}. This unanimity across sources frames the factual baseline on which later interpretation rests.

2. Timeline and immediate circumstances — the final hours reconstructed

Accounts reconstruct Woolf’s final hours with similar specifics: she filled her coat pockets with stones, walked from Monk’s House into the fields behind the property, entered the River Ouse, and did not re-emerge; her body was recovered several days later ^{[7] [8]}. The contemporaneous death notice and subsequent family and scholarly statements recorded the date as 28 March 1941 and located the death at Rodmell, Sussex, creating a consistent chronological anchor for historians and biographers ^[1]. Variations among retellings are mainly about the phrasing used to describe her mental state and the degree of emphasis placed on contributing life events rather than the physical mechanics of her death ^[3].

3. Mental‑health context in the sources — what Woolf herself and others recorded

Primary and near‑contemporary sources emphasize recurrent and severe mental‑health crises in Woolf’s life, including hospitalizations, past attempts, family losses, and what modern commentators often describe as bipolar‑spectrum illness; the suicide letter explicitly mentions hearing voices, inability to concentrate, and dread of relapse ^{[4] [5]}. Biographical accounts provided in later decades reiterate both the longstanding psychiatric history and the emotional tone of the farewell note, treating the letter as Woolf’s own explanation rather than as a forensic verdict; scholars differ in how much weight they place on situational stressors versus enduring clinical vulnerability ^{[4] [6]}.

4. Disputed emphases and media framing — how retellings diverge

While the basic facts remain consistent, secondary narratives differ in emphasis and sometimes introduce interpretive disputes: some media and popular accounts have historically sensationalized the mechanics (stones in pockets, dramatic imagery) or simplified the psychiatric picture into a single diagnostic label; academic and archival treatments stress the nuance of evidence and caution about retroactive diagnosis ^{[7] [5]}. A number of pieces critique earlier press interpretations as misread or exploitative of Woolf’s note, while newer scholarly work seeks to contextualize her death in terms of lifetime trauma and psychiatric recurrence rather than isolated final acts ^{[7] [6]}.

5. Sources, dates, reliability, and what remains uncontroversial

The most recent sources among the set reiterate the core facts while offering updated contextual readings; a 2025 scholarly reflection continues the established account and situates it in Woolf studies ^[6], while mid‑ and late‑20th century reference works provide the foundational dates and descriptions ^{[1] [2]}. Across these works, the uncontroversial elements are the date (28 March 1941), location (River Ouse near Rodmell), method (drowning with stones in pockets), and existence of a suicide note to Leonard expressing acute psychiatric distress ^{[2] [1] [4]}. Debates remain about precise diagnostic labeling, the relative causal weight of life events versus illness, and the ethics of media portrayal, but these do not alter the established factual framework.