Search results for ""author virginia woolf""

The 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. Over the span of three centuries, Orlando will fall in love many times and rub shoulders with the great artists and writersand observe how differently history treats men than women. Bold and tender, Orlando is a truly multi-faceted work that has been hailed as a satire of biography, a queer classic, and a loving portrait of an irrepressible spirit.

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In the wake of World War I and the 1918 flu pandemic, Clarissa Dalloway, elegant and vivacious, is preparing for a party and remembering those she once loved. In another part of London, Septimus Smith is suffering from shell shock and is on the brink of madness. Their days interweave and their lives converge as the party reaches its glittering climax. Over the course of a single day, Woolf achieves an uncanny simulacrum of consciousness, bringing past, present, and future together, and recording, minute by minute, the feel of life itself.

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HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. There was a star riding through clouds one night, and I said to the star, ‘Consume me’ Six friends traverse the uneven road of life together in Virginia Woolf’s most unconventional classic. Bernard, Jinny, Louis, Neville, Rhoda and Susan first meet as children by the sea, and their lives are forever changed. A poetic novel written in a lyrical way only Woolf could master, these narrators face both triumph and tragedy that touches them all. Throughout their lives, they examine the relationship between past and present, and the meaning of life itself. A landmark of innovative fiction and the most experimental of Virginia Woolf’s novels, The Waves is still regarded as one of the greatest works ever written in the English language.

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In October 1928 Virginia Woolf was asked to deliver speeches at Newnham and Girton Colleges on the subject of 'Women and Fiction'; she spoke about her conviction that 'a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction'. The following year, the two speeches were published as A Room of One's Own, and became one of the foremost feminist texts. Knitted into a polished argument are several threads of great importance - women and learning, writing and poverty - which helped to establish much of feminist thought on the importance of education and money for women's independence. In the same breath, Woolf brushes aside critics and sends out a call for solidarity and independence - a call which sent ripples well into the next century.

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First published in 1921 as part of her ground-breaking short-story collection Monday or Tuesday, Kew Gardens follows the thoughts of a set of characters walking past a flower bed in the royal botanic garden on a hot July day. Interweaving the thoughts of the characters with depictions of the natural world surrounding them, the narrative flows from mind to mind, from the tranquil flower bed to the bustling city outside. Written in Woolf’s trademark style, brimming with keen observation and rich language, Kew Gardens is both a paean to the natural world and an empathetic exploration of human experience. 'The light fell either upon the smooth, grey back of a pebble or the shell of a snail with its brown, circular veins, or, falling into a raindrop, it expanded with such intensity of red, blue and yellow the thin walls of water that one expected them to burst and disappear… Then the breeze stirred rather more briskly overhead and the colour was flashed into the air above, into the eyes of the men and women who walk in Kew Gardens in July.'

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FOREWORD BY ALI SMITH WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY FRANCESCA WADE Who better to serve as a guide to great books and their authors than Virginia Woolf? In the early years of its existence, the Times Literary Supplement published some of the finest writers in English: T. S. Eliot, Henry James and E. M. Forster among them. But one of the paper’s defining voices was Virginia Woolf, who produced a string of superb essays between the two World Wars. The weirdness of Elizabethan plays, the pleasure of revisiting favourite novels, the supreme examples of Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot and Henry James, Thomas Hardy and Joseph Conrad: all are here, in anonymously published pieces, in which may be glimpsed the thinking behind Woolf’s works of fiction and the enquiring, feminist spirit of A Room of One’s Own. Here is Woolf the critical essayist, offering, at one moment, a playful hypothesis and, at another, a judgement laid down with the authority of a twentieth-century Dr Johnson. Here is Woolf working out precisely what’s great about Hardy, and how Elizabeth Barrett Browning made books a “substitute for living” because she was “forbidden to scamper on the grass”. Above all, here is Virginia Woolf the reader, whose enthusiasm for great literature remains palpable and inspirational today.

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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘The flower bloomed and faded. The sun rose and sank. The lover loved and went. And what the poets said in rhyme, the young translated into practice.’ Written for her lover Vita Sackville-West, ‘Orlando’ is Woolf’s playfully subversive take on a biography, here tracing the fantastical life of Orlando. As the novel spans centuries and continents, gender and identity, we follow Orlando’s adventures in love – from being a lord in the Elizabethan court to a lady in 1920s London. First published in 1928, this tale of unrivalled imagination and wit quickly became the most famous work of women’s fiction. Sexuality, destiny, independence and desire – all come to the fore in this highly influential novel that heralded a new era in women’s writing.

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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind…’ Based on a lecture given at Cambridge and first published in 1929, ‘A Room of One’s Own’ interweaves Woolf’s personal experience as a female writer with themes ranging from Austen and Brontë to Shakespeare’s gifted (and imaginary) sister. ‘Three Guineas’, Woolf’s most impassioned polemic, came almost a decade later and broke new ground by challenging the very notions of war and masculinity. This volume combines two inspirational, witty and urbane essays from one of literature’s pre-eminent voices; collectively they constitute a brilliant and lucid attack on sexual inequality.

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As Mabel Waring takes off her cloak and steps into the drawing room of Clarissa Dalloway, she immediately realizes that something is not right: her pale-yellow silk dress, which she has had specially made for the occasion, is clearly old-fashioned, dowdy and out of place. Everyone seems to be looking at her in dismay or mocking her appearance. Crushed at once by her insecurity, Mabel is pervaded by a sense of selfloathing, and feels utter revulsion for the social world she has tried so hard to impress. Written in 1924 and perhaps intended for inclusion in Mrs Dalloway, a book Woolf was working on at the time, The New Dress is here accompanied by most of the short stories she published in her lifetime, as well as six posthumously published pieces that share the milieu and some of the characters of her celebrated novel. Together, they reveal their author as one of the finest practitioners in the field of short fiction.

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It is a variable early summer's day, and there is an unusual bustle in the grounds of Pointz Hall, a country house in a remote village in the very heart of England. The local community is all astir, intent on putting the finishing touches to preparations for the annual pageant, which is to be performed there that evening. Among the medley of attendees are Mr Oliver, the owner of the house, the flirtatious Mrs Manresa and her friend William Dodge, who is rumoured to be homosexual, the troubled married couple Giles and Isa, as well as the eccentric spinster Miss La Trobe, the author of the pageant - an ambitious journey through England's past and literature. Highly symbolic, and dealing with many of the themes that were most dear to Virginia Woolf, such as the condition of the individual in the current of history, sexual ambiguity and the tension between life and art, Between the Acts was the author's final novel, offering a tantalising glimpse of the direction her fiction might have taken.

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It is 1880: after visiting his mistress in the London suburbs, Colonel Pargiter returns home to his children and his dying wife. In a series of snapshots we meet all the Pargiter siblings: twenty-year-old Eleanor, whose concern is to help the poor; her younger sisters Milly, Delia and Rose; her brothers Morris, Martin and Edward, who is at Oxford and in love with his cousin Kitty. As the years unfold, the various threads of relation, history and personal experience are woven into the tapestries of the characters’ lives, forming a larger canvas that covers not only the story of a family, but that of two entire generations. The most ambitious of Woolf ’s novels, and the last one to be published during her lifetime, The Years is a work suff used with a haunting, melancholy sense of time and history, and a stylistic tour de force.

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Through 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.

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Orlando, a young nobleman and one of Queen Elizabeth I’s court favourites, is the object of many ladies’ attentions, but after suffering heartbreak he prefers literary pursuits to entertaining any thoughts of marriage. Having obtained an ambassadorial post in Constantinople, Orlando falls into a long sleep and wakes up suddenly transformed into a woman. Also blessed with the gift of never ageing, she embarks on adventurous travels throughout Europe and the following centuries, observing what it is like to be female. A “fantastical biography” inspired by the life of the flamboyant writer Vita Sackville-West, Orlando is an amusing and eccentric jeu d’esprit, as well as a groundbreaking exploration of gender issues.

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Originally hand-printed at her Hogarth Press in Richmond, Monday or Tuesday is the only collection of short stories that Virginia Woolf published during her lifetime, providing a fascinating insight into the early stages of development of themes that would blossom in her later masterpieces. From the impressionist description of four groups of people walking by a flowerbed in the botanic gardens at Kew to the soaring flight of a heron above the teeming life of towns and cities below and the reveries of a woman as she looks at a mark on the wall, the eight pieces included in this volume showcase Woolf's inimitable observational powers and her boldly modern style of writing.

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Virginia Woolf wanted to write about the vast unknown uncertain continent that is the world and us in it' Jeanette Winterson, from her introduction to The Waves The Waves is an astonishingly beautiful and poetic novel. It begins with six children playing in a garden by the sea and follows their lives as they grow up and experience friendship, love and grief at the death of their beloved friend Percival. Weaving together soliloquies from the novel's six characters, Woolf delicately and expertly explores universal concepts such as individuality, the self, and community. A novel still as poignant today as it was when written. Regarded by many as her greatest work, The Waves is also seen as Virginia Woolf's response to the loss of her brother Thoby, who died when he was twenty-six.

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'One of the most moving, revolutionary artworks of the twentieth century' Michael CunninghamClarissa Dalloway, elegant and vivacious, is preparing for a party and remembering those she once loved. In another part of London, Septimus Warren Smith is suffering from shell-shock and on the brink of madness. Smith's day interweaves with that of Clarissa and her friends, their lives converging as the party reaches its glittering climax. Virginia Woolf's masterly novel, in which she perfected the interior monologue, brings past, present and future together on one momentous day in June 1923.

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Discover Virginia Woolf’s informative and erudite critical essays on some of the key novelists and dramatists of the canon – from the ancient Greeks to Jane Austen and beyond.Virginia Woolf read, and wrote, as an outsider, denied the educational privileges of her male contemporaries. She was perhaps better able, then, to address a 'common reader' in this wide-ranging collection of essays. With all the imagination and gaiety that are the stamp of her genius, she turns from medieval England to tsarist Russia, and subjects Elizabethan playwrights, Victorian novelists and modern essayists to her wise, acute and entertaining scrutiny.Essays on Jane Austen, George Eliot, Nancy Mitford, Joseph Conrad, Michel de Montaigne, Daniel Defoe and many others.

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'The window panes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass' Nowhere are Virginia Woolf's daring experimentations with style and form more evident than in her short stories, which shimmer and flash with their author's peculiar genius. Collected by Leonard Woolf and published after her death, this is a complete collection of Virginia Woolf's shorter fiction. It is a fascinating and vivid introduction for readers new to Woolf, and a necessary companion for devotees. Includes 'A Haunted House', 'Kew Gardens', 'A Mark on the Wall' and 42 other pieces. Edited, with introductions and notes by Susan Dick.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HELEN SIMPSON

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With 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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The 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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In the wake of World War I and the 1918 flu pandemic, Clarissa Dalloway, elegant and vivacious, is preparing for a party and remembering those she once loved. In another part of London, Septimus Smith is suffering from shell shock and is on the brink of madness. Their days interweave and their lives converge as the party reaches its glittering climax.Over the course of a single day, from first light to the dark of night, Woolf achieves an uncanny simulacrum of consciousness, bringing past, present, and future together, and recording, impression by impression, minute by minute, the feel of life itself.

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People everywhere have found themselves faced with a global pandemic, during which we have learned to cope with sickness and all that accompanies it: isolation, immunity, loss of control, and recovery. Yet while no longer taboo, illness remains an unpopular theme in literature. In her essay, On Being Ill Virginia Woolf asks whether illness should not receive more literary attention, taking its place alongside the recurring themes of “love, battle and jealousy”. The subtle complexities of Woolf’s essay will no doubt continue to be resonant for a new generation of readers today. In this collaborative volume, authors, translators and illustrators have come together from Great Britain, Ireland, the United States and the Netherlands to represent past, present and future thinking about illness. Noteworthy contributions to this edition are Deryn Rees-Jones’ preface to Woolf’s essay from 1926 and the introduction to Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals of 1980. Against these, the voices of contemporary authors resonate as they contemplate the interactions between sickness and literature. Readers are able to begin the book at the end, or might happily start in the middle, as every contribution is a unique, personal piece which offers poignant observations of the world of illness from within. Writing, as well as reading, about illness, is a form of love.

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Woolf’s textured prose invites us into each of the characters’ minds as we follow them on a winding, decade-long journey to the lighthouse.Mr and Mrs Ramsay and their eight children have always holidayed at their summer house in Skye, surrounded by family friends. But as time passes, bringing with it war and death, the summer home stands empty until one day, many years later, the family return to make the long-postponed visit to the lighthouse.VINTAGE VOYAGES: A world of journeys, from the tallest mountains to the depths of the mind

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