Books by Virginia Woolf

Book SynopsisContains Woolf's second and third novels, Night and Day and Jacob's Room.

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.Clarissa Dalloway is a woman of high-society vivacious, hospitable and sociable on the surface, yet underneath troubled and dissatisfied with her life in post-war Britain. This disillusionment is an emotion that bubbles under the surface of all of Woolf's characters in Mrs Dalloway.Centred around one day in June where Clarissa is preparing for and holding a party, her interior monologue mingles with those of the other central characters in a stream of consciousness, entwining, yet never actually overriding the pervading sense of isolation that haunts each person.One of Virginia Woolf's most accomplished novels, Mrs Dalloway is widely regarded as one of the most revolutionary works of the 20th century in its style and the themes that it tackles. The sense that Clarissa has married the wrong person, her past love for another female friend and the death of an intended party guest all serve to amplify this stultifying existence.

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Book SynopsisA Room of One’s Own (1929) has become a classic feminist essay and perhaps Virginia Woolf’s best known work; The Voyage Out (1915) is highly significant as her first novel. Both focus on the place of women within the power structures of modern society. The essay lays bare the woman artist’s struggle for a voice, since throughout history she has been denied the social and economic independence assumed by men. Woolf’s prescription is clear: if a woman is to find creative expression equal to a man’s, she must have an independent income, and a room of her own. This is both an acute analysis and a spirited rallying cry; it remains surprisingly resonant and relevant in the 21st century. The novel explores these issues more personally, through the character of Rachel Vinrace, a young woman whose ‘voyage out’ to South America opens up powerful encounters with her fellow-travellers, men and women. As she begins to understand her place in the world, she finds the happiness of love, but also sees its brute power. Woolf has a sharp eye for the comedy of English manners in a foreign milieu; but the final undertow of the novel is tragic as, in some of her finest writing, she calls up the essential isolation of the human spirit.

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Book SynopsisVirginia Woolf, who was to become a major figure in the Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals, was born into an intellectual family in 1882. Her mother died when she was 13 and the death of her half-sister Stella two years later led to her first nervous breakdown. Woolf suffered from fragile mental health all her life and on 28 March 1941, after filling the pockets of her overcoat with stones, she walked into the River Ouse near her home and drowned herself.

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Book SynopsisThrough a series of connected monologues, The Waves tells the story of six very different friends – Bernard, Louis, Neville, Jinny, Susan and Rhoda – as they progress from childhood to middle age. Interspersed with evocative descriptions of the seaside at different times of day, the poignant personal histories coalesce into a poetic tapestry of human experience. A commercial and critical success when it was first published in 1931, and now considered by some to be Virginia Woolf’s most ambitious novel, showcasing her Modernist narrative techniques at their finest, The Waves casts a visionary and lyrical light on everyday life.Trade ReviewShe was doing with language something like what Jimi Hendrix does with a guitar. -- Michael Cunningham

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Book SynopsisBased on lectures given at Cambridge colleges and first published by the Hogarth Press in 1929, A Room of One’s Own is an extended essay about the predicament of female writers and a stirring call for autonomy and recognition. As well as settling scores with reactionary critics and laying the foundations of a history of women’s literature, the text is also a triumph of imagination, with a celebrated passage envisaging the fate of a fictional sister of Shakespeare’s. A seminal, widely studied feminist polemic that touches on both literature and politics, A Room of One’s Own is essential reading for those wishing to understand the progress that has been made in women’s rights and the struggles that still lie ahead.Trade ReviewShe was doing with language something like what Jimi Hendrix does with a guitar. -- Michael Cunningham

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Book Synopsis''I feel the need of an escapade after these serious poetic experimental books...I want to kick up my heels & be off.''Orlando tells the tale of an extraordinary individual who lives through centuries of English history, first as a man, then as a woman; of his/her encounters with queens, kings, novelists, playwrights, and poets, and of his/her struggle to find fame and immortality not through actions, but through the written word. At its heart are the life and works of Woolf''s friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West, and Knole, the historic home of the Sackvilles. But as well as being a love letter to Vita, Orlando mocks the conventions of biography and history, teases the pretensions of contemporary men of letters, and wryly examines sexual double standards. This new edition discusses Woolf''s stylistic aims, the biographical parallels, and the work''s literary context, and includes the original illustrations. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Trade ReviewIf you have always wanted to read Woolf but feel intimidated, Orlando is a good place to start. And you can't go wrong with this new Oxford edition. * Shiny New Books, Stefanie Hollmichel *

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Book SynopsisFlush was an English cocker spaniel who belonged to the nineteenth-century poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Virginia Woolf learned of him from the love letters Elizabeth wrote to her future husband, fellow poet Robert Browning, and found ‘the figure of their dog made me laugh so, I couldn't resist making him a Life.’ The resulting ‘biography’ combines sensuous imaginative description with sharp social comment, and brings Woolf’s unsentimental humour and insight to the fore. We see Flush as loyal confidant to Elizabeth on her sickbed at Wimpole Street, and from his jealous perspective we witness her courtship by Browning, their elopement and new life in Italy. The perfect accessible introduction to Woolf’s genius, a unique blend of fact and fiction, Flush is perhaps best read in the company of a canine companion.This edition includes the four original illustrations by Vanessa Bell and an afterword by Margaret Forster.Cover designed by the award-winning Finnish designer Aino-Maija MetsolaTrade ReviewA most triumphant trespassing of human imagination into dog sensibilities... The result is a book of irresistible grace and charm * Spectator *Flush is an afternoon's delight for dog-loving readers. It's wit and whimsy and sniffing, snuffling playfulness will amuse anyone who's ever known a spaniel. Woolf's literary underdog is a canine classic. * Guardian *A masterpiece... It is not fiction because it has the substance, the reality of truth. It is not biography because it has the freedom, the artistry of fiction * New York Herald Tribune Books *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review'I read this book and believed it was a hallucinogenic, interactive biography of my own life and future' -- Tilda SwintonA book that refuses all constraints: historical, fantastical, metaphysical, sociological -- Jeanette Winterson * New Statesman *A fantasy, impossible but delicious ... an exuberance of life and wit * The Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisIn the sixteenth century, Orlando enjoys life as a nobleman including a fleeting yet deep love affair with a Russian princess, and an eventful stint in Constantinople as an ambassador. However, one day, Orlando awakes as a woman. She relishes her new life, but everything has irrevocably changed.

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Book SynopsisVirginia Woolf's humorous biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's spaniel is charming yet also radical. A work of sensuous imagination, it opens up a range of questions about class, society, and cultural attitudes which are woven throughout the whole of Woolf's writing.

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Book SynopsisAdeline Virginia Woolf was an English writer. She is considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors. She pioneered the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.

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Book SynopsisLittle Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. 'The hour should be evening and the season winter, for in winter the champagne brightness of the air and the sociability of the streets are grateful'. In such conditions, Virginia Woolf takes to London's streets in search of a pencil. The account of her journey - the people, the places, the pleasure - soon becomes one of the great paeans to city life. This collection also includes other wonderful essays, such as 'How Should One Read a Book?' and 'The Sun and the Fish'. 'One of the great writers of the twentieth century' Guardian

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Book SynopsisThe fictional portrait of Woolf's close friend and lover Vita Sackville-West, the hero Orlando is a young nobleman in Elizabethan England, a dreamy and romantic youth who wakes up one day to find himself transformed, astonishingly, into a woman.

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Book SynopsisWith an introduction by Siri Hustvedt Friday 30 October 1936. I do not wish, for reasons I cannot now develop, to analyse that extraordinary summer. It will be more helpful & healthy for me to write scenes; to take up my pen & describe actual events: good practice too for my stumbling & doubting pen. Can I still 'write'? That is the question, you see. And now I will try to prove if the gift is dead, or dormant. The concluding volume of Virginia Woolf's diary covers the last five years of her life, ending four days before she committed suicide at the age of 59. These final years were overshadowed by the untimely death of her nephew Julian Bell in the Spanish Civil War, and her own intermittent mental fragility. As another World War began to seem inevitable, writing itself often felt like a battle. Nevertheless, this period saw the publication of her novel The Years, the polemical essay Three Guineas, the biography of her friend Roger Fry, and the writing of Between the Acts. This volume stands as a monument to Woolf's life and the enduring friendships of the Bloomsbury group. This Granta edition of Volume 5 contains the unexpurgated text for the first time.

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Book SynopsisNew to the Vintage Classics Woolf series, this is Woolf's groundbreaking experimental novel.Jacob's Room is Virginia Woolf's first truly experimental novel. It is a portrait of a young man, tracing his life from childhood, to Cambridge University, and to his early adult life in artistic London. Jacob always yearns for something greater, and embarks on a voyage to the Mediterranean before the war begins and his fate is forever altered. Impressionistic in style, the narrative is as inspired now as it was when it first appeared.'A remarkable achievement' New StatesmanTrade ReviewJacob, of whom people speak, of whom they think, but who is never shown. And yet that denial of presence on the part of the author makes of him one of the most living presences in world literature. It’s a remarkable achievement.—New StatesmanVirginia Woolf stands as the chief figure of modernism in England and must be included with Joyce and Proust in the realisation of experimental achievements that have completely broken with tradition—New York Times

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Book SynopsisThis volume brings together Virginia Woolf’s last two novels, The Years (1937) which traces the lives of members of a dispersed middle-class family between 1880 and 1937, and Between the Acts (1941), an account of a village pageant in the summer preceding the Second World War which successfully interweaves comedy, satire and disturbing observation. Rewriting the traditional family saga and the pageant, these unsettling novels provide extraordinary critiques of Englishness and English identity while pursuing compelling existentialist and psychological themes such as the nature of time, memory, personal relationships and sexual desire. Their tightly constructed narratives enable the reader to experience the fragmented lives of their characters and the difficulties that they have in communicating with each other and even understanding themselves. Read together, these novels illuminate each other in ways that will engage both the student and the general reader.

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.JACOB'S ROOM, Virginia Woolf's third novel, marks her first foray into Modernist experimentation. The narrative traces Jacob's childhood in Cornwall and his education at Cambridge, culminating in an evocative portrait of his adult life in London and abroad. Jacob is romantically torn between the artistic Florinda, the upper-middle-class Clara Durrant and the beautiful, but married, Sandra Wentworth Williams. This tissue of romance, though, is torn apart by the cataclysmic events of the First World War. Woolf poignantly depicts the life of Jacob through a sequence of alternating perspectives that combine letters, fragments of dialogue and the ephemeral impressions of those nearest to him. Jacob's voice becomes the absent centre of one of Modernism's first great novels.

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Book SynopsisJacob Flanders is a young man passing from adolescence to adulthood in a hazy rite of passage. From his boyhood on the windswept shores of Cornwall to his days as a student at Cambridge, his elusive, chameleon-like character is gradually revealed in a stream of loosely related incidents and impressions: whether through his mother's letters, his friend's conversations, or the thoughts of the women who adore him. Then we glimpse him as a young man, caught under the glare of a London streetlamp. It is 1914, he is twenty-six, and Europe is on the brink of war... This tantalizing novel heralded Woolf's bold departure from the traditional methods of the novel, with its experimental play between time and reality, memory and desire.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres a

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Book SynopsisIn this extraordinary essay, Virginia Woolf examines the limitations of womanhood in the early twentieth century. With the startling prose and poetic licence of a novelist, she makes a bid for freedom, emphasizing that the lack of an independent income, and the titular ‘room of one’s own’, prevents most women from reaching their full literary potential. As relevant in its insight and indignation today as it was when first delivered in those hallowed lecture theatres, A Room of One’s Own remains both a beautiful work of literature and an incisive analysis of women and their place in the world.Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition of A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf features an afterword by the British art historian Frances Spalding.

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Book SynopsisAdeline Virginia Woolf was an English writer. She is considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors. She pioneered the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.

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Book SynopsisOn a perfect June morning, Clarissa Dalloway – fashionable, worldly, wealthy, an accomplished hostess – sets off to buy flowers for the party she will host that evening. She is preoccupied with thoughts of the present and memories of the past, and from her interior monologue emerge the people who have touched her life. On the same day, Septimus Warren Smith, a shell-shocked survivor of the Great War, commits suicide, and casual mention of his death at the party provokes in Clarissa thoughts of her own isolation and loneliness. Bold and experimental, Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway is a landmark in twentieth-century fiction and a book that gets better and better with every reading. This elegant Macmillan Collector’s Library edition of Virginia Woolf's modernist classic features an afterword by editor and publisher Anna South. Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

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Book SynopsisWith an introduction by Margo Jefferson Thursday 28 May 1931. On Whit Monday the sun blazed, making the grass semi-transparent. And space & leisure seemed to lie all about; & I said, not once in an exstasy, but frequently & soberly, This is happiness. Why should I feel now calmer, quieter than ever before? This volume of Virginia Woolf's diary has a slower pace: she is finishing The Waves and wrestling with the shape of her next novel (The Years). These years are marred by the death of many of the people in her circle, including her close friend Lytton Strachey. Woolf also reflects on the political situation in Britain, and the menacing rise of fascism abroad. The diary testifies to the sense of external threat, as well as the tension between her social and her writing life, but as she and Leonard embark on a series of foreign trips she also revels in the discovery of new places and the profound contentment of her marriage.

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Book SynopsisFirst published in 1923 but failing to gain the same fame as her groundbreaking collection Monday or Tuesday, Woolf's short story In the Orchard is perhaps her most experimental, painting the same picture in three very different ways.

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Book SynopsisA party of English people are aboard the Euphrosyne, bound for South America. Among them is Rachel Vinrace, a young girl, innocent and wholly ignorant of the world of politics and society, books, sex, love and marriage. She is a free spirit half-caught, momentarily and passionately, by Terence Hewet, an aspiring writer who she meets in Santa Marina. But their engagement is to end abruptly, and tragically. Virginia Woolf's first novel, published in 1915, is a haunting exploration of a young woman's mind, signalling the beginning of her fascination with capturing the mysteries and complexities of the inner life.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by d

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Book Synopsis''Woolf is modern ... With Joyce and Eliot she has shaped a literary century'' Jeanette WintersonVirginia Woolf tested the boundaries of fiction in these short stories, developing a new language of sensation, feeling and thought, and recreating in words the ''swarm and confusion of life''. Defying categorization, the stories range from the more traditional narrative style of ''Solid Objects'' through the fragile impressionism of ''Kew Gardens'' to the abstract exploration of consciousness in ''The Mark on the Wall''.Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Sandra KempTrade ReviewWoolf is modern ... With Joyce and Eliot she has shaped a literary century -- Jeanette Winterson * The Times *

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Book Synopsis'He stretched himself. He rose. He stood upright in complete nakedness before us, and while the trumpets pealed 'Truth! Truth! Truth!' we have no choice left but confess - he was a woman.'A young man in the court of the ageing Queen Elizabeth I, the beautiful Orlando seems to belong everywhere and nowhere. One morning, Orlando awakens transformed - transported into the eighteenth century, and the body of a woman.One of the twentieth century's defining imaginings of queer identity, Orlando is a book of radical possibilities -boy and girl, past and future, nature and magic, life and history, love and literature. One of the most thrilling love letters in all literature, it trespasses thrillingly over the borders of place, time and self.Trade ReviewOrlando is the book to put under your pillow and rest upon -- TILDA SWINTONWonderfully bold and inventive * * Observer * *Sexy, provocative and tantalising -- JEANETTE WINTERSONA book that refuses all constraints: historical, fantastical, metaphysical, sociological . . . Orlando is a joyful and passionate declaration of love as life, regardless of gender . . . Reading Orlando is a pleasure. It is like sitting up all night by the fire with an old friend and a bottle of wine, where the talk is easy, whether of great things or small, and when, as morning comes, you feel better * * New Statesman * *

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Book SynopsisA Contemporary Classics hardcover edition of Virginia Woolf's classic plea for aworld in which women are free to use their gifts. In this influential extended essay and using powerful images and memorable thought experiments -such as a fictional sister of William Shakespeare, who is as talented as her brother but limited in ways he was not -Woolf analyses the many ways in which women have been held back throughout history and still are in her own time.

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Book SynopsisTracing a day in the life of society hostess Clarissa Dalloway, Virginia Woolf triumphantly discovers her distinctive style as a novelist. First published in 1925, MRS DALLOWAY is her first complete rendering of what Woolf described as the 'luminous envelope' of consciousness: a dazzling display of the mind's inside as it plays over the brilliant surface and darker depths of reality.

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Book SynopsisExplore The Struggle Between Expression and Suppression with Virginia WoolfPart of the Contested Classics series, this special edition of Virginia Woolf''s Mrs. Dalloway offers readers a unique opportunity to explore one of the 20th century''s most captivating and contested novels. Published in 1925, Woolf''s masterful narrative takes us through a single day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a high-society woman in post-World War I England, weaving a tapestry of thoughts, memories, and encounters.With in-text annotations this edition identifies and explores which sections are reasons for this book being banned: Exploration of Mental Health: Mrs. Dalloway boldly delves into the complexities of mental health and post-traumatic stress disorder, especially in its portrayal of the character Septimus Warren Smith, a war veteran. This frank treatment of mental illness was pioneering for its time but has led to challenges in more conservative settings. Feminist Undertones: The novel is celebrated for its early feminist undertones, examining the roles and expectations of women in society. However, these themes have also sparked debate, particularly in more traditional communities. Suicidal Ideation: The depiction of suicidal thoughts and the eventual suicide of a character has been a point of controversy, raising concerns about its appropriateness for young readers. Stream-of-Consciousness Style: Woolf''s innovative narrative technique, while acclaimed, has also been critiqued for its complexity and perceived difficulty, leading some to challenge its inclusion in educational curricula. In this edition of Mrs. Dalloway readers are invited not only to experience Woolf''s groundbreaking work but also to understand the controversies and discussions it has inspired over the years. This book is a must-read for those interested in literature that continues to challenge and provoke thought long after its publication.

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Book SynopsisEssential to Virginia Woolf's development as a novelist, these short stories are among the most interesting and accomplished fictions she wrote.Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Note on Publication and Spelling Select Bibliography A Chronology of Virginia Woolf The Mark on the Wall Kew Gardens An Unwritten Novel Solid Objects A Hanuted House Monday or Tuesday Blue and Green The String Quartet A Society In the Orchard Woman's College From Outside The New Dress 'Slater's Pins Have No Points' The Lady in the Looking-glass: A Reflection Explanatory Notes

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Book SynopsisVirginia Woolf was born in London in 1882, the daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen, first editor of The Dictionary of National Biography. After his death in 1904 Virginia and her sister, the painter Vanessa Bell, moved to Bloomsbury and became the centre of 'The Bloomsbury Group'. This informal collective of artists and writers which included Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry, exerted a powerful influence over early twentieth-century British culture. In 1912 Virginia married Leonard Woolf, a writer and social reformer. Three years later, her first novel The Voyage Out was published, followed by Night and Day (1919) and Jacob's Room (1922). These first novels show the development of Virginia Woolf's distinctive and innovative narrative style. It was during this time that she and Leonard Woolf founded The Hogarth Press with the publication of the co-authored Two Stories in 1917, hand-printed in the dining room of their house in Surrey. Between 1925 and 1931 Virginia Woolf produced what are now regarded as her finest masterpieces, from Mrs Dalloway (1925) to the poetic and highly experimental novel The Waves (1931). She also maintained an astonishing output of literary criticism, short fiction, journalism and biography, including the playfully subversive Orlando (1928) and A Room of One's Own (1929) a passionate feminist essay. This intense creative productivity was often matched by periods of mental illness, from which she had suffered since her mother's death in 1895. On 28 March 1941, a few months before the publication of her final novel, Between the Acts, Virginia Woolf committed suicide.Trade ReviewWoolf’s groundbreaking novel is still one of the best available accounts of self-mythologising middle-class family life and its oppressive construction of male and female identity -- Rachel CuskI reread this book every once in a while, and every time I do I find it more capacious and startling. It’s so revolutionary and so exquisitely wrought that it keeps evolving on its own somehow, as if it’s alive -- Alison BechdelA classic for a reason. My mind was warped into a new shape by her prose and it will never be the same again. The metaphysics she presents in the book are enacted in a way that allowed me to begin to understand that corner of philosophy -- Greta GerwigTo The Lighthouse is one of the greatest elegies in the English language, a book which transcends time -- Margaret DrabbleIt is an elegy for lost times and family life * The Week *

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Book SynopsisThat fiction is a lady, and a lady who has somehow got herself in to trouble, is a thought that must often have struck her admirers.'Penned in 1927 but first published posthumously in The Moment and Other Essays in 1947, The Art of Fiction' sets out perhaps more clearly than anywhere else Woolf's advice to writers of fiction, instructing authors to focus on language choices rather than dwelling on concerns around accuracy. On one level an amusing collection in Woolf's trademark style, skewering male writers of yore, taken together these essays form an invaluable writing guide from one of the finest craftspeople of the English language.

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Book SynopsisOne of BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World.Virginia Woolf’s wildly imaginative, comic novel was inspired by the life of her lover, Vita Sackville West. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features original illustrations and with an introduction by the academic and novelist, Professor Susan Sellers.Orlando is a young Elizabethan nobleman whose wealth and status afford him an extravagant lifestyle. Appointed ambassador in Constantinople, he wakes one morning to find he is a woman. Unperturbed by such a dramatic transformation, and losing none of his flamboyance and ambition, the newly female Orlando charges through life and English history so that by the end of this extraordinary biography she is a modern, 1920s woman.

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Book SynopsisVirginia Woolf (Author) Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was born in London. She became a central figure in The Bloomsbury Group, an informal collective of British writers, artists and thinkers. In 1912 Virginia married Leonard Woolf, a writer and social reformer. She wrote many works of literature which are now considered masterpieces, including Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, and The Waves.Margaret Reynolds (Introducer) Margaret Reynolds is a writer, academic, critic and broadcaster. Her critical edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh won the British Academy's Rose Mary Crawshay prize. Other books include The Penguin Book of Lesbian Short Stories, The Sappho Companion, Victorian Women Poets: An Anthology (with Angela Leighton) and a series of study guides on contemporary writers, Vintage Living Texts. She is Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of LondonTrade ReviewOrlando is the wittiest little book, a pleasure: it makes me laugh every time I read itUndoubtedly Virginia Woolf's most intense and one of the most singular [novels] of our era

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Book SynopsisThe Ramsays spend their summers on the Isle of Skye, where they happily entertain friends and family and make idle plans to visit the nearby lighthouse. Over the course of the book, the lighthouse becomes a silent witness to the ebbs and flows, the births and deaths, that punctuate the individual lives of the Ramsays.

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions.In her second volume of essays, Virginia Woolf delves deeper into the delights of reading. Here, she explores the novels of Thomas Hardy and Daniel Defoe, and recounts the fascinating lives of Christina Rossetti and Mary Wollstonecraft. In How Should One Read a Book?' she offers sage advice for the common reader, and sheds light on the lessons and pleasures literature can provide.Published in 1932, The Common Reader: Second Series is a wise and illuminating companion collection to her 1925 First Series. Woolf's enduring appeal and ideas continue to resonate with readers in the twenty-first century.

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Book SynopsisWITH AN INTRODUCTION, PLUS EXTENSIVE NOTES AND REFERENCES BY HERMIONE LEEThis volume combines two books which were among the greatest contributions to feminist literature this century. Together they form a brilliant attack on sexual inequality. A Room of One''s Own, first published in 1929, is a witty, urbane and persuasive argument against the intellectual subjection of women, particularly women writers. The sequel, Three Guineas, is a passionate polemic which draws a startling comparison between the tyrannous hypocrisy of the Victorian patriarchal system and the evils of fascism.Trade ReviewOne realises afresh the full meaning of originality, the magic of the mind which plays around concrete facts as though they were all spirit. And when it is finished it is with a renewed sense of zest and stimulus that one takes up life again and looks anew at objects which before were only ordinary. * Guardian *Brilliant interweaving of personal experience, imaginative musing and political clarity -- Kate MosseAchingly relevant -- Natasha Walter * Guardian *

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Book Synopsis''I, who would wish to feel close over me the protective waves of the ordinary, catch with the tail of my eye some far horizon.''Intensely visionary yet absorbed with the everyday; experimental, daring and challenging, The Waves is regarded by many as Virginia Woolf''s greatest achievement. It follows a set of six friends from childhood to middle age as they experience the world around them and explore who they are and what it means to be alive. As the contours of their lives are revealed, a unique novel is slowly unveiled. Enfolded within Woolf''s lyrical and mysterious language, the mundane takes on a startling new significance while distant pasts are no less in play than the clamorous sounds and kaleidoscopic sights of the modern city. Yet precisely where the alluringly enigmatic pages of The Waves are leading, and what deeper meanings are held within its undulant chapters and shimmering interludes, are questions that have never ceased to enthral readers and critics alike.In this neTrade ReviewOxford World Classics has produced a terrific reissue of Virginia Woolf's novel The Waves. There are helpful endnotes, biographical information, a selected bibliography and an introduction... a beautiful, rich novel that cannot be completely grasped in one reading. It begs to be read again and again. When I finished it I was surprised by how emotionally charged and churned up I was. I felt abandoned on the shore as the tide went out, left to wait for its return, for a wave to grab me and pull me back out to sea. * Shiny New Books, Stefanie Hollmichel *Bradshaw's introduction helps the reader to see just how readable it actually is. * Lindsay Martin, Virginia Woolf Bulletin *

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.Every summer, the Ramsays visit their summer home on the beautiful Isle of Skye, surrounded by the excitement and chatter of family and friends, mirroring Virginia Woolf?s own joyful holidays of her youth. But as time passes, and in its wake the First World War, the transience of life becomes ever more apparent through the vignette of the thoughts and observations of the novel?s disparate cast.A landmark of high modernism and the most autobiographical of Virginia Woolf?s novels, To the Lighthouse explores themes of loss, class structure and the question of perception, in a hauntingly beautiful memorial to the lost but not forgotten.Chosen by TIME magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present.

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Book SynopsisEDITED BY JOANNE TRAUTMANN BANKS, WITH A PREFACE BY HERMIONE LEEThe finest and most enjoyable of Virginia Woolf's letters are brought together in a single volume.Trade ReviewAbout her letters there can be no division: they are among the best ever written in the English language * Sunday Telegraph *Letters as well selected as these, and as brilliant, close the gap between the author and the private person * The Times *

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