Search results for ""author virginia woolf""

HarperCollins 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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HarperCollins 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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When Mrs Ramsay tells her guests at her summer house on the Isle of Skye that they will be able to visit the nearby lighthouse the following day, little does she know that this trip will only be completed ten years later by her husband, and that a gulf of war, grief and loss will have opened in the meantime. As each character tries to readjust their memories and emotions with the shifts of time and reality, this long-delayed excursion will also prove to be a journey of self-discovery and fulfilment for them. Rich in symbolism, daring in style, elegiac in tone and encapsulating Virginia Woolf's ideas on life, art and human relationships, To the Lighthouse is a landmark of twentieth-century literature and one of the high points of early Modernism.

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New 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 Statesman

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'Brilliant interweaving of personal experience, imaginative musing and political clarity' Kate Mosse Virginia Woolf exposes the prejudices and constraints against which women writers struggled for centuries, and argues for a more equal literary establishment. This 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. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HERMIONE LEE

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'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 Kemp

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WITH INTRODUCTIONS BY ANGELICA GARNETT AND JO SHAPCOTTIn Night and Day, Virginia Woolf portrays her elder sister Vanessa in the person of Katharine Hilbery - the gifted daughter of a distinguished literary family, trapped in an environment which will not allow her to express herself. Looking at questions raised by love and marriage, Night and Day paints an unforgettable picture of the London intelligensia before the First World War, with psychological insight, compassion and humour.

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With 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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With an introduction by Virginia Nicholson Saturday 2 February 1918. The first walk we've had for ever so long. Damp, mild vaporous day. Funeral bells tolling as we went out, & marriage as we came in. The streets lined with people waiting their meat. Aeroplanes droning invisible. Our usual evening, alone happily, knee deep in papers. This diary begins in January 1915. Virginia Woolf was about to publish her first novel, The Voyage Out. By the end of 1919 she had published many essays and reviews, as well as a second novel, Night and Day. Her diary was the counterpoint to that public writing: here she could record details of daily life, think about friends and reading, writing and her state of mind. This diary offers a unique insight into the life and mind of one of Britain's most influential writers, and the circle she was part of which came to be known as Bloomsbury. This new Granta edition includes Woolf's 'Asheham Diary' for the first time.

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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.’ One hot summer’s day in 1923, Clarissa Dalloway sets out to buy flowers for the party she is to host in her London home. Over the course of the day, she faces the ghosts of her past, as an unexpected visitor forces her to revisit the memories of her youth. Meanwhile, shell shocked war veteran Septimus Warren-Smith descends into anguish, and Mrs Dalloway is confronted with the fragility of life. Revolutionary in form, Mrs Dalloway was one of Woolf’s greatest achievements, and a novel that has continued to inspire readers and writers to this day.

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Tracing 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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Described by Virginia Woolf herself as 'easily the best of my books', and by her husband Leonard as a 'masterpiece', To the Lighthouse, first published in 1927, is one of the milestones of Modernism. Set on the Isle of Skye, over a decade spanning the First World War, the narrative centres on the Ramsay family, and is framed by Mrs Ramsay's promise to take a trip to the lighthouse the next day - a promise which isn't to be fulfilled for a decade. Flowing from character to character and from year to year, the novel paints a moving portrait of love, loss and perception. Bearing all the hallmarks of Woolf's prose, with her delicate handling of the complexities of human relationships, To the Lighthouse has earned its reputation - frequently appearing in lists of the best novels of the twentieth century, it has lost not an iota of brilliance.

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From his childhood on the wild, windswept shores of Cornwall and his college days at Cambridge to his life as a lawyer in London and a fateful journey to the Mediterranean, Jacob Flanders’s story is told by the women in his life, whether through his mother’s correspondence, the conversations of a friend or the thoughts and remembrances of those who love him. An extraordinary departure from traditional forms of the novel, Jacob’s Room is both an elegiac and experimental tale told in pieces and fragments, and one of Virginia Woolf ’s most poignant stories. “Jacob, of whom people speak, of whom they think… 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.” – MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM

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Virginia Woolf's singular technique in Mrs Dalloway heralds a break with the traditional novel form and reflects a genuine humanity and a concern with the experiences that both enrich and stultify existence. Society hostess, Clarissa Dalloway is giving a party. Her thoughts and sensations on that one day, and the interior monologues of others whose lives are interwoven with hers gradually reveal the characters of the central protagonists. Clarissa's life is touched by tragedy as the events in her day run parallel to those of Septimus Warren Smith, whose madness escalates as his life draws toward inevitable suicide.

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Vintage Feminism: classic feminist texts in short formWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JEANETTE WINTERSON‘What conditions are necessary for the creation of works of art?’ Security, confidence, independence, a degree of prosperity – a room of one’s own. All things denied to most women around the world living in Virginia Woolf’s time, and before her time, and since. In this funny, provoking and insightful polemic, Virginia Woolf challenges her audience of young women to work on even in obscurity, to cultivate the habit of freedom, and to exercise the courage to write exactly what we think.ALSO IN THE VINTAGE FEMINIST SHORT SERIES:The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary WollstonecraftThe Beauty Myth by Naomi WolfMy Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst

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'Sheer magic' Eileen Atkins, Daily MailDiscover one of the most famous and ground-breaking pieces of twentieth century literature about one day in the mind of woman as she prepares to give a party. In this vivid portrait of one day in a woman's life, Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of a party she is to give that evening. As she readies her house she is flooded with memories and re-examines the choices she has made over the course of her life.With a beautifully designed VINTAGE CLASSICS cover and the same text used as in its original publication, this edition of Mrs Dalloway is a perfect Mother's Day gift for Woolf lovers new and old. 'One of the most moving, revolutionary artworks of the twentieth century' Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours

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'But, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and fiction - what has that got to do with a room of one's own?'A Room of One's Own grew out of a lecture that Virginia Woolf had been invited to give at Girton College, Cambridge in 1928 and became a landmark work of feminist thought. Covering everything from why a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write, to authors such as Jane Austen, Aphra Behn and the Brontë sisters, and the tragic story of Shakespeare's fictional sister Judith, it remains a passionate assertion for female creativity and independence in a world dominated by men. 'Fierce, energetic, humorous' Hermione Lee

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'She always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day'On a June morning in 1923, Clarissa Dalloway is preparing for a party and remembering her past. Elsewhere in London, Septimus Smith is suffering from shell-shock and on the brink of madness. Their days interweave and their lives converge as the party reaches its glittering climax. Here, Virginia Woolf perfected the interior monologue and the novel's lyricism and accessibility have made it one of her most popular works.The Penguin English Library - collectable general readers' editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War.

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Written in the same period as Mrs Dalloway these seven short stories show the author's fascination with parties and with all the excitement, the fluctuations of mood and temper and the heightened emotions which surround these social occasions. Mrs Dalloway's Party is enchanting piece of work by one of our most acclaimed twentieth-century writers.

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To the Lighthouse, considered by many to be Virginia Woolf's finest novel, is a remarkably original work, showing the thoughts and actions of the members of a family and their guests on two separate occasions, ten years apart. The setting is Mr and Mrs Ramsay's house on a Scottish island, where they traditionally take their summer holidays, overlooking a bay with a lighthouse. An experimental work that pushes the limits of what we know about the world and ourselves, Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse is one of the most beautifully crafted of all novels written in the English language.This Macmillan Collector’s Library edition features an afterword by Sam Gilpin.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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The beautiful Everyman gift edition in hardback.The Lord Orlando's country seat has 365 rooms. An exquisitely beautiful youth, he is a favourite of the ageing Queen Elizabeth and enjoys all that Court and tavern have to offer. He falls passionately in love with the intriguing Sasha, an androgynous Russian princess, who jilts him. Stricken, he takes up Literature, penning huge quantities of poems and plays, 'all romantic, and all long'. A few decades later a still youthful Orlando is appointed ambassador to Constantinople by Charles II. Here he wakes up one day and finds he has the body of a woman. "Different sex, same person", she observes, unphased.In London, it is the eighteenth century, and she can hobnob with "men of genius" Pope and Swift, Johnson and Boswell. She has affairs with both women and men, but before long it is the nineteenth century, oppressively gloomy and moral and probably time to find a husband. Fortunately, in a Brontësque moment on a moor, the gender- nonconforming Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine, newly back from Cape Horn, gallops past and scoops her up into bliss.Woolf's most unusual and joyous novel was inspired by her affair with the dashing author and aristocrat, Vita Sackville West.

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This Norton Critical Edition includes: The 1925 first American edition text, introduced and annotated by Anne Fernald. A map of Mrs. Dalloway’s London. An unusually rich selection of contextual materials, including diary entries and letters related to the composition of the novel, essays, short stories and biographical excerpts, and the only introduction that Virginia Woolf wrote to any of her novels. The voices of other writers are also included, allowing readers to consider the literary passages that influenced Woolf’s art and historical moment. Eight reviews of Mrs. Dalloway, from publication to the present day. A chronology and a selected bibliography. About the Series Read by more than 12 million students over fifty-five years, Norton Critical Editions set the standard for apparatus that is right for undergraduate readers. The three-part format—annotated text, contexts and criticism—helps students to better understand, analyse and appreciate the literature, while opening a wide range of teaching possibilities for instructors. Whether in print or in digital format, Norton Critical Editions provide all the resources students need.

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'Fear no more the heat of the sun.' Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf's fourth novel, offers the reader an impression of a single June day in London in 1923. Clarissa Dalloway, the wife of a Conservative member of parliament, is preparing to give an evening party, while the shell-shocked Septimus Warren Smith hears the birds in Regent's Park chattering in Greek. There seems to be nothing, except perhaps London, to link Clarissa and Septimus. She is middle-aged and prosperous, with a sheltered happy life behind her; Smith is young, poor, and driven to hatred of himself and the whole human race. Yet both share a terror of existence, and sense the pull of death. The world of Mrs Dalloway is evoked in Woolf's famous stream of consciousness style, in a lyrical and haunting language which has made this, from its publication in 1925, one of her most popular novels. 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.

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