A History Of Being Alone

Virginia Woolf insisted on the need for a room of one’s own, but onlythe upper middle classes could have afforded one at the time. In the19th century, only 1% of the British population lived on their own; in2011 it was 31%, or some 8 million people. Yet as urbanisation and largefamilies pitched people together, the anonymous world of industrialcapitalism also split them apart. Rural life may have been rough, but atleast you knew who lived next door. So if a longing to be alone becamemore a