The Waves, first published in 1931, is Virginia Woolf's most experimental novel. It consists of soliloquies spoken by the book's six characters: Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville, Jinny, and Louis.

Also important is Percival, the seventh character, though readers never hear him speak in his own voice. The soliloquies that span the characters' lives are broken up by nine brief third-person interludes detailing a coastal scene at varying stages in a day from sunrise to sunset.

As the six character...

The subtle complexities of Virginia Woolf’s essay ‘On Being Ill’ will no doubt continue to be resonant for a new generation of readers today.

Certainly for both Woolf and Plath, the politics of illness are never far away.

“Illness”, Woolf writes, “makes us disinclined for the long campaigns that prose extracts”.

On Being Ill is a valuable book for everybody who wants to connect with illness through art and literature, and look at it from a different perspective. With the poignan...

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 p...

Virginia Woolf was an English writer, and one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century. Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a central figure in the influential Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and Orlando. Rachel Vinrace leaves on her father's ship for South America and her journey of self-discovery begins. The eclectic group of passengers provides Woolf with an opportunity to poke ...

'Brilliant interweaving of personal experience, imaginative musing and political clarity' Kate MosseThis volume combines two books which were among the greatest contributions to feminist literature this century.

With an Introduction and Notes by Merry M. Pawlowski, Professor and Chair, Department of English, California State University,Bakersfield. 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 a...

Why should one half be free to live, while the other is doomed to watch silently from the sidelines? In this collection, the author leads us on a transformative journey through the liberating powers of the mind.

For years now the Ramsays have spent every summer in their holiday home in Scotland, and they expect these summers will go on forever; but as the First World War looms, the integrity of family and society will be fatally challenged.

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 fulf...