Virginia Woolf ( born January 25 , 1882 in London ) was an English writer , essayist and feminist . Adeline Virginia Woolf ( Ë wÊ lf ; 25 January 1882 â `` 28 March 1941 ) was an English author , essayist , publisher , and writer of short stories , regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century .