Leaska unearths much new and disturbing material that illuminates both Woolf's life and work. He recounts the hard realities of Woolf's early life -- the succession of tragic and untimely deaths, the illnesses, the stretches of madness -- as they emerged, infallibly transformed by Woolf's imagination in her iridescent novels, letters, and diaries. Leaska explores, for the first time, the troubled lives of Woolf's parents. Plunging below the lyrical surface of Woolf's narratives, he uncovers the dissonances generated by her parents' relationship and the deeper story of how she sought to create harmony out of such profound divisions.