Henry investigates how advances in astronomy in the early twentieth century had a shaping effect on Woolf's literature and aesthetics as well as on the work of modernist British writers including Vita Sackville-West, H. G. Wells, and T. S. Eliot. In re-evaluating the cultural context out of which Modernism emerged, Henry contends that Woolf, through her own fascination with astronomy, formulated a global vision that helped shape her fiction and her pacifist politics. Henry's study includes examinations of unpublished scientific and literary archival material and sheds new light on Woolf's texts.