Product Description
In Trespassing Boundaries, contemporary Woolf scholars discuss the literary importance of Woolf's short stories. Despite being easily available, these stories have not yet received the attention they deserve. Complex yet involving, they should be read not only for the light they shed on Woolf's novels, but in their own right, as major contributions to short fiction as a genre. This volume places Woolf's short stories in the context of modernist experimentalism, then explores them as ambitious attempts to challenge generic boundaries, undercutting traditional distinctions between short fiction and the novel, between experimental and popular fiction, between fiction and nonfiction. Collectively the essays suggest that Woolf's contribution to the short story is as important as her contribution to the novel.
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Product Description
Two of Virginia Woolf´s most influential works,andreveal the quintessence of her experimentation with narrative technique in depicting the passage of time and the nature of human consciousness. This guide includes an outline of the critical reception of Woolf´s work -placing these two texts in the context of her oeuvre -as well as extracts from her own writing on these novels and an exploration of the birth of "Woolf studies" in the mid-twentieth century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

a useful collection of reviews
If you're a woolf student this book may be useful to have a complete panorama of the critical situation on two of her major books. I used it to have a deeper insight on the two novels, especially on "TheWaves" - a book on which critical judgement is not easily found - andfound it perfectly responding to the needs of a higher universitystudent.

The book presents the major critical instances on the two worksin chronological order, from woolf's contemporaries up to our days. Eachchapter deals with a selection of significant reviews, all of whichbelonging to the same period if not to the same attitude to the works. Moreover each chapter is introduced by a brief text by the curatorexplaining the main contents of the reviews which are going to follow andthe principal critical ideas referring to a period or critical school.

Ina few words: this is what you need if you want to get a deeper criticalknowledge of "To the Lighthouse" and "The Waves", andto gain it in a quite short time - the book in fact is not too long, can beread quite quickly and if you're interested in getting particular pieces ofinformation can also easily be skimmed through.

a useful collection of reviews
If you're a woolf student this book may be useful to have a complete panorama of the critical situation on two of her major books. I used it to have a deeper insight on the two novels, especially on "TheWaves" - a book on which critical judgement is not easily found - andfound it perfectly responding to the needs of a higher universitystudent.

The book presents the major critical instances on the two worksin chronological order, from woolf's contemporaries up to our days. Eachchapter deals with a selection of significant reviews, all of whichbelonging to the same period if not to the same attitude to the works. Moreover each chapter is introduced by a brief text by the curatorexplaining the main contents of the reviews which are going to follow andthe principal critical ideas referring to a period or critical school.

Ina few words: this is what you need if you want to get a deeper criticalknowledge of "To the Lighthouse" and "The Waves", andto gain it in a quite short time - the book in fact is not too long, can beread quite quickly and if you're interested in getting particular pieces ofinformation can also easily be skimmed through. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (4)

boring
This book is very boring. It is more like reading philosophy than a novel.

It All Boils Down To Money!
Early feminism begins to emerge in this essay written by Virginia Woolf in 1938 as a follow up to her wonderful book "A Room of One's Own."

Woolf received requests for three guineas from a women's college, from a society for promoting professional women and finally from a group requesting the prevention of war. This essay is Woolf's answer to those requests. While it is extraordinarily cumbersome to read the bottom line suggests that a society which promotes only one aspect of itself and suffocates anything else will never be advanced enough to protect its own culture and intellect from revolutions and wars. And because the idea of fighting rests in the very aspect so highly promoted (male dominated society) all of the laws and practices contain this strife and will until other parts of society are allowed a fair voice. The interesting concept is how little society has advanced from this original idea and the strife continues to be a factor today. Woolf suggests war exists as a profession and an act that offers "happiness and excitement" for the very society it falls under. In fact she goes as far to suggest that men would deteriorate without the outlet of war to contend with. Woolf discusses patriotism as a purely male act because of the fact that women simply cannot be patriots in a culture that suffocates their voices and refuses to educate them (remember this is 1938). The disturbing thought is that women are now able to vote, work and fight in wars but our culture remains basically the same with white males in domination. How slow we are to advance!

Virginia Woolf believed that war could only be prevented through an educational system that stopped the glamorization of it and instead taught the inhumanity of the act. She found that poor educational systems actually taught better because they allowed art and creative processes to flow rather than the pomp and circumstance of wealth and the art of dominating, killing and capital acquirements. Sadly one of Woolf's most profound ideas applies today, "There we have an embryo the creature, Dictator as we call him when he is Italian or German, who believes that he has the right, whether given by God, Nature, sex or race is immaterial, to dictate to other human beings how they shall live; what they shall do." From a society of slavery, racism and suffering emerges a great savior promoting freedom? It seems an oxymoron does it not?Woolf continues, "And what right have we, Sir, to trumpet our ideas of freedom and justice to other countries when we can shake out from our most respectable newspapers any day of the week eggs like these?" The futurism of Woolf is astounding in this book as she finally suggests that women be labeled "outside" society so that her country is the entire world and her patriotism allowed to be the same. In a visionary profoundness Woolf manages to find an answer towards true freedom outside of the fascination of a few guineas.

Not Perfect, But Interesting and Still Relevant
If you've come in search of more Virginia Woolf essays after being blown away by A Room of One's Own, be warned - Three Guineas isn't as good as that earlier, astonishing essay.Nevertheless, a second-tier Virginia Woolf essay is still a Virginia Woolf essay, which is to say, clever, funny and dangerously sharp.

In Three Guineas, Woolf discusses three letters, each requesting a donation of a guinea, one from a society seeking to prevent war, one from a society promoting the employment of professional women and one from the building fund of a women's college.All worthy goals, and anyone else might have been satisfied to send them each a guinea and be done with it.Woolf, on the other hand, uses these three requests to launch a discussion about women's role in society and the effect that educated, professional women can and should have on it.

As in A Room of One's Own, some of what Woolf says is obvious or outdated.What's staggering, however, is how many of her observations remain fresh and relevant.Even more staggering is how accurately she predicts the changes that have taken place since society began making a real place for women - changes in society, but also changes in women.Although I knew much of what Woolf was saying, I doubt that I had ever seen these thoughts so clearly and intelligently formulated.As an added bonus, Three Guineas provides a brief but fascinating glimpse into the history of the suffrage movement (and its opposition) in England.

It is easy to guess Three Guineas' flaws.It is too long, too detailed, and ultimately not as revelatory and exciting as A Room of One's Own.It is, however, important to anyone interested in thinking about women's place in society, and the affect that each has on the other.Along with A Room of One's Own, it should be required reading for young women who (like myself) take their rights and freedom for granted.

Women against war
I gave this book 5 stars, not because I really liked it, but because it'sinteresting.Three Guineas is VW second book that is an argument and notfiction (the first is a room of one's own).It's about how women can helpprevent war, and it says a lot of stuff, one of the things being to linkmale vanity to aggression. It's controversial, and a lot less pleasant thana room of one's own.It's weird in retrospect, too, because her argumentstands in another time - before the second world war - and we've allchanged since the holocaust etc. It says a lot about feminism, too, andwomen entering the professions and getting an education.Like I say, it'smore aggressive than ARoOO, and this makes her less likeable. Whether ornot you like it, though, or agree with what she says, it's an argument thatshould be out there.It's something that should be said. ... Read more

Product Description
A haunted house that holds the mystery of the human heart; a challenge to read the contents of a library -- that reveals how dismally bad all too many books are. Five faces in a train compartment that among them become an unwritten novel.?.?.?. a garden that holds the memory of love. Monday or Tuesday contains eight beautiful tales from the strange beautful mind of Virginia Woolf, one of the 20th century's most innovative -- and most disturbing, and most disturbed -- writers. This gorgeous collection reveals Woolf's style and imagination in all their delicate brilliance. "Virginia Woolf stands as the chief figure of modernism in England and must be included with Joyce and Proust in the realization of experiments that have completely broken with tradition." -- The New York Times ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Eight challenging pieces
Monday or Tuesday by Virginia Woolf. Published by MobileReference (mobi).

All these stories are engaging and thought-provoking, and the length is manageable even to someone out of practice with the stream of conciousness style. The stories will make you look at life in a slightly different way. ... Read more

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In this poignant and humorous work, Virginia Woolf observes that though illness is part of every human being’s experience, it has never been the subject of literature—like the more acceptable subjects of war and love. We cannot quote Shakespeare to describe a headache. We must, Woolf says, invent language to describe pain. And though illness enhances our perceptions, she observes that it reduces self-consciousness; it is "the great confessional." Woolf discusses the cultural taboos associated with illness and explores how illness changes the way we read. Poems clarify and astonish, Shakespeare exudes new brilliance, and so does melodramatic fiction!

On Being Ill was published as an individual volume by Hogarth Press in 1930. While other Woolf essays, such as A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas, were first published by Hogarth as individual volumes and have since been widely available, On Being Ill has been overlooked. The Paris Press edition will feature original cover art by Woolf’s sister, the painter Vanessa Bell. Hermione Lee’s Introduction will discuss this "extraordinary" work, and explore Woolf’s revelations about poetry, language, and illness.

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) is one of the great literary geniuses of the 20th century. Her innovative fiction and essays are revered by readers around the globe. She was a central member of the Bloomsbury group and a groundbreaking feminist, publishing book-length essays that continue to change the lives of women today. Her most popular novels include To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Dalloway, and Orlando. When she was not writing, Virginia Woolf operated Hogarth Press with her husband Leonard Woolf.

Hermione Lee is the acclaimed Virginia Woolf scholar and the author of Virginia Woolf (Knopf, 1997). Other books include Willa Cather and the forthcoming biography of Edith Wharton. She is Goldsmith’s Professor of English Literature and Fellow of New College at the University of Oxford, England.

Customer Reviews (4)

A glowing perspective
In this discerning and somewhat humorous essay, Virginia Woolf remarks on humanity's experiences with illness, whether mental or physical, and on how it is rarely the subject of literature or art. She notes our contradictory nature toward sympathy and offers an opinion about what illness tells us about the natural world. Hermione Lee's fascinating introduction firmly places this remarkable work in the context of Woolf's life and writing. This Paris Press edition recreates the original artwork and typeset of the 1930 printing of "On Being Ill".

This is a short trip
This book is so small, the Introduction, pp. xi-xxxii, by Hermione Lee (April 15, 2002), plus notes to p. xxxiv, (the truly scholarly pages substantiating the material which ought to be considered, now that an entire book, VIRGINIA WOOLF'S ART AND MANIC-DEPRESSIVE ILLNESS by Thomas Caramagno (University of California Press, 1992) covers the topic), have more paragraphs than the main text, which only has nine or ten, unless you count multiple breaks for lines of some poet on p. 20 and Rimbaud at the top of p. 21 as indicating some flight beyond the normal bounds of the paragraph in which "Incomprehensibility has an enormous power over us in illness, more legitimately perhaps than the upright will allow" (p. 21) expresses itself as a single sentence.

The sentences are what astounds.The first sentence is constructed like an erudite train to somewhere:"Considering how ..., how ..., how astonishing ..., what ..., what ..., what ..., how we go down into the pit of death ...--when we think of this, as we are so frequently forced to think of it, it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature."(pp. 3-4).This hardly gives a firm foundation for those humorous moment when the primary reaction of anyone who is not in on the joke is:I think I'm going to be sick.

A precious gift to readers
From its magnificent cover, to its brilliant and sensitive insights into the psychology of illness--being ill, being near someone who is ill, anticipating being ill or well again--this book is a jewel.I love the way it feels in my hands.I love the way my eyes roam over the pages.I love the way it feels beneath my pillow.I've given it to friends and they have given it to their friends.And I am so pleased that Paris Press--"beautiful and daring feminist books"--has reprinted it as Woolf and Vanessa Bell intended.Precious!

MUST READ
On Being Ill is a small masterpiece. This is a unique book--compassionate, intelligent, affirming, and comforting, both for the "healthy" among us, and those who have experienced illness. This is Woolf at her best: brilliant, daring, probing, and Hermione Lee's Introduction is a gem.

Also, for those of us who care about design, the book is a beauty, a work of art in itself.

Put this book among those most dear to you! ... Read more

Product Description
In this early collection of eight short stories by Virginia Woolf conventional notions of plot and character are abandoned for a stream of consciousness, almost dream-like and experimental form of prose. Readers while find the relative brevity of this volume, and the stories within it, helpful in overcoming any unfamiliarity with this style of writing. "Monday or Tuesday: Eight Stories" was first published in 1921 and includes the following stories: "A Haunted House," "A Society," "Monday or Tuesday", "An Unwritten Novel," "The String Quartet," "Blue & Green," "Kew Gardens," and "The Mark on the Wall". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Short Stories
This is a slim volume. Virginia Woolf doesn't write stories in the usual sense, with a well-defined plot or a conclusive ending. These stories are more like sketches, concise but incisive, and they leave a powerful impact.

As usual, Virginia Woolf excels in her prose. Every sentence is crafted beautifully, rich in words and richer in meaning. Reading her stories is both a provocative experience and a pleasant pastime.

Eight challenging pieces by a master prose stylist
"Monday or Tuesday: Eight Stories," by Virginia Woolf, is an intriguing collection that holds up to re-readings. The copyright page of the Dover Thrift edition notes that the book is an unabridged republication of the edition published in 1921.

In many of these stories conventional notions of plot and character are apparently thrown out the window in favor of a dreamlike, experimental style. At times the stories in this book remind me of the work of Gertrude Stein. Woolf crafts some really memorable phrases and visual images.

The longest of the 8 stories, "A Society" (pp. 3-16) is about a group of women who form a "society for asking questions" about male contributions to the world. This piece has a rich satirical flavor; in it Woolf raises questions about female creativity and procreativity, the nature of fiction, and the impact of female literary artists.

Although at times I often found Woolf's writing obscure, I enjoyed her elegant prose style.

Classic Woolf
This volume of short stories is a good re-introduction to an author most of us probably haven't seen since High School.The stories are engaging and thought-provoking, and the length is manageable even to someone out of practice with the stream of conciousness style.I carried this book to read between classes one semester and enjoyed the challenge of reading something better than standard leisure fare.This book made me want to see more Virginia Woolf.Well recommended.

Monday or Tuesday: Eight Stories
This book of eight stories by Virginia Woolf shows Virginia's mind at work demonstrating her "stream of consciousness." Each story flows from one thought to another asking different questions about life.Forexample, "The Mark on the Wall" questions the meaning of life andexistence."An Unwritten Novel" is about what people hide andwhat you don't know about a person you seat next to on an"omnibus."All these stories will make you look at life in aslightly different way. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1935, while Virginia Woolf was alive and building her career as a woman writer, Ruth Gruber published a seminal essay on the novelist that is now seen as the first feminist interpretation of Woolf’s writings and life. Seventy years after its original publication, Gruber’s seminal critique is available once again, with new material that makes it more relevant for readers today. Virginia Woolf: The Will to Create as a Woman includes several previously unpublished letters exchanged between Woolf and Gruber, and a new introduction in which Gruber recalls her 1933 meeting with the English writer, examining the questions surrounding Woolf’s bi-polar illness and anti-Semitism.

In this groundbreaking assessment of Woolf’s philosophy, influences, and style, Gruber laid the groundwork for a generation of future feminist analyses. She cogently examines Woolf’s concept of gender and her literary influences, adeptly discussing how Woolf constructed a feminine writing style in a realm dominated by men. Above all, she shows how Woolf consciously strove to create as a woman.

Virginia Woolf’s experimental prose and her struggles with mental illness have made her an enduringly provocative figure, and today, more than sixty years after her suicide, Woolf’s writing continues to fascinate and inspire readers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Required reading for female writers
Whenever I read this I think, "I've got a room and some money -- so maybe deciding to write for a living wasn't such a bad idea after all." ... Read more

Product Description
Now in her forties and in love, Woolf writes two of her greatest novels during this period. "I can only write, letters that is, if I don't read them: once think and I destroy."-to Pernel Strachey, August 10, 1923. Edited by Nigel Nicolson and Joanne Trautmann; Introduction by Nigel Nicolson; Index; photographs.
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Customer Reviews (2)

Just what I expected. Virginia Woolf at her best.
The Volume III of VW letters shows the author in her most vivid, busiest and probably happiest days. Not only did she write three of her most famous books but also she became close friends with Vita Sackville West who became a very important person in her life. The letters, to Vita, Nessa, Clive, Quentin, Lytton and the rest of her closed friends are funny, tender, insightful... A great read to combine with the diaries which are also great in a different kind of way.I highly recommended it for those who want to know the person behind the genius, her insecurities, her loves, her worries and amusements.

Volume Three is wonderful.
The usual characters, Vita, Nessa, Ottoline, Ethel, Clive, a great letter to Lytton, T.S. Elliot, the Press, love grows, and hard work.Fantastic letters by a truly interesting person.Highly recommended for side reading while reading the diaries (which are great)and for reference of other kinds.Pictures!Virginia's early 40's, the inspiration for Orlando.Oh yeah, and Leonard.Edited by person close with yrs of this volume.Good recommendation from me. ... Read more

Product Description
Why is it that men, and not women, have always had power, wealth, and fame? Woolf cites the two keys to freedom: fixed income and one's own room. Foreword by Mary Gordon.Amazon.com Review
Surprisingly, this long essay about society and art and sexismis one of Woolf's most accessible works. Woolf, a major modernistwriter and critic, takes us on an erudite yet conversational--andcompletely entertaining--walk around the history of women in writing,smoothly comparing the architecture of sentences by the likes of WilliamShakespeare and Jane Austen, allthe while lampooning the chauvinistic state of university education inthe England of her day. When she concluded that to achieve their fullgreatness as writers women will need a solid income and a privacy,Woolf pretty much invented modern feminist criticism. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (45)

"A view of the open sky"
Where can I begin to describe this wonderful invitation to an exceptionally brilliant mind?The book is supposed to be about women and fiction, but it offers so much more--acute observations on literature, disparities in society between sexes, interity of writing and activity of reading.Her writing style is fluid, beautifully and flawlessly transitions between facts, observations, thoughts and insight.Her criticism is sharp and poignant but without bitterness, self-pity, or arrogance, so inviting into her intimate thoughts.She has a great ability to use hypothetical character, such as Judith, Shakespeare's sister, and to use examples--Jane Austen, Coleridge-- so creatively without causing any distraction.This book satisfies her own standard, "One must strain off what was personal and accidental in all these impressions and so reach the pure fluid, the essential oil of truth". This is an excellent book worth reading over and over.

College Reading
I learned what I needed to from this book;
but it reminded me of the types of books I
had to read in college.I was glad I purchased
it though.

Excellent
This was an incredible work, mindblowing and provocative, putting intense subject matter and scope into a very short little account. Of the work I've read so far in 2010, it does the most with the least space, giving a fundamental feminist branching point for reflections on literature, politics, war, culture, family, psychology, the academy and identity. This final element is particularly effective, providing a rich understanding of how conditions of patriarchy determine not just power, not just social roles, but the very self. Starkly, this account delves into the scope of such politics, in framing how self-regard and the regard of others. Woolf perceives and expresses very clearly that men and women both have twisted psyches from the power disequilibrium, and some of her most resonant passages are the musings on why exactly the entrenched male intellectual elite show so much passion in denying female publications. Across the work there are areas where Woolf is no longer as applicable, where she reflects on conditions in our day that are substantively changed for the better. But this is far from total, and a lot of this writing still rings very true. That's not exactly a positive reflection on the state of our world ninety years later, but it makes this piece still a vital piece of thought for policy brokers and regular citizen here and now.

Perhaps the area Woolf most impressed me was her thorough understanding of how systemic realities and power structures work. Long before historians had really started taking cultural history seriously or understanding the role of discourses in positioning individuals, Woolf paints a clear understanding in the feminist context. Specifically, her question of what would happen to a woman of literary genius in a society where she cannot express herself poses some stark look at structures, while her answer (probably go insane) reveals again how fundamental this type of control is, how non-negotiable basic equality should be to avoid this kind of intergenerational anguish.

In addition to Woolf's effectiveness in analysis of many given topics, there's also a great energy and value to the way she moves from one angle of focus to another. There's apower fluidity in here that reflects both the power of her thought and the inherent interconnectivity of the issues she faces, women's place in literature leads smoothly into the cultural changes of Britain since the war, which leads to reflections on basic power distribution and the scope of nature. What the question ultimately returns to, and what Woolf powerfully voices, is how widespread the power gap is between men and women, how much the later have been abused, coerced and silenced, and how intolerable this situation is. Woolf's writing is self-consciously a record of main themes of that oppression and a challenge against it.

In a more minor note, it's a bit surprising to encounter repeated references to Mussolini as the archetypal figure of masculinized, militaristic fascism. Pre '33 that makes sense, and works as a reminder on how rapidly political symbols of evil and violence can shift in global vocabulary.

Similar to and better than: Woolf's Three Guineas

Similar to and worse than: Butler's Gender Trouble

Beautiful, Heartwarming & Inspiring
This is not just an essay on feminism, this is a window to Virginia Woolf's thought pattern and logic. A Room of One's Own is beautifully written, it almost reads like a novel yet is packed with insightful thoughts on the idea of being an independent woman. The roles of women have changed since Virginia wrote this book but that in no way renders this book obsolete, for there are many struggles yet to be overcome and Virginia foresaw that in this book.

Her hopes and dreams for women are beautifully expressed and heartwarming. This book is like a gem, the more you look at it the brighter it shines. I have reread A Room of One's Own many times and gotten so much from it. Its a book you will not regret owning. Simply inspiring.

Still Relevant and Important
One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.
~Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

Virginia Woolf's very intense A Room Of One's Own, is actually a longessay she wrote "with ardour and conviction" on the the topic of women and fiction, that she prepared when asked to speak about this subject at women's colleges. A Room of One's Own was published in 1929, when young women were still discouraged from attending college (due to genuine fear that a good education would make women unfit for marriage and motherhood), and although it's not angry in tone the essay reflects a society in which severe limitations were put on women and their achievements.Virginia Woolf speaks about the creative process that lead to her talks,ofher notebook in which she recorded a multitude of ideas, thoughts, and mental meanderings, and writes about the train of thought that led to her conclusion, that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction". In A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf grapples with what is exactly meant by women and fiction (not a simple matter), and demonstrates and expresses the complexity of her thought in her trademark stream-of-consciousness writing. Defying conventions of the time, she talks about the actual food served at the luncheon party, of the soles and partridges and potatoes, and of the importance of food to the artist in a more general sense. She discusses numerous things in this full, layered essay of her thoughts, among them a sense of lossdue to the war which began in August of 1914, that changed the underlying current of life--previously filled with music and poetry, with romance--and of the special difficulties women artists face (still relevant today!).Her message is simple (though the means is not), that women must have money (a fixed income) and a room of their own (privacy) in order to have the freedom to create, luxuries that men may take for granted. She imagines Shakespeare's "sister", equal in talent and genius, but because of her sex, never writes a word, never expresses her genius, never lives to old age because she takes her own life in quiet desperation. Her essay is meant to encourage young women, to inspire them to create, as she's sympathetic to their plight. In A Room of One's Own,Virginia Woolfwants the limitations removed, and for women to have the same intellectual freedom that men have had for centuries, so that they, too, may express their genius.

(This is a passage slightly modified from my blog about books, Suko's Notebook, suko95.blogspot.com, which I invite you to visit.) ... Read more

Product Description
Drawing on recent film theory, Raitt produces a feminist re-reading of "To The Lighthouse". This text explores psychoanalytic theories of gender and accounts of the screen image of woman as fetish. It includes a discussion of an essay, "The Cinema", which Woolf wrote while working on this novel. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The best damn book I ever read
Action -- little
Characters -- many
Significant ones -- few
Scenery -- drab
Dialoge -- non-existant
For those of you who desire nothing more than crawling inside someone's head and heart, this is the book for you.But don't take my word for it. (Small joke.)The second section (Time Passes) is especially delicious.True, the action is peppered among large chunks of weather words, but this only serves to make that which does occur all the more poignant.For those of you who insist on a plot, the ending will be anti-climactic.If you are of the eccentric crowd, you will be most pleased.I reccomend it highly, but only if you are of your own genus. ... Read more

Product Description
During Virginia Woolf's lifetime Britain's position in the world changed, and so did the outlook of its people. The Boer War and the First World War forced politicians and citizens alike to ask how far the power of the state extended into the lives of individuals; the rise of fascism provided one menacing answer.Woolf's experiments in fiction, and her unique position in the publishing world, allowed her to address such intersections of the public and the private.Michael Whitworth shows how ideas and images from contemporary novelists, philosophers, theorists, and scientists fuelled her writing, and how critics, film-makers, and novelists have reinterpreted her work for later generations.
The book includes a chronology of Virginia Woolf's life and times, suggestions for further reading, websites, illustrations, and a comprehensive index. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Ideal for those who want to understand more about Woolf
This book is a perfect for gaining a richer understanding of the world and works of Virginia Woolf.I read "Mrs Dalloway" when I visited London, England on holiday last year.I had never read any Woolf before, although I majored in English Literature many years ago when I was in College.I found the novel fascinating and was keen to learn more about Woolf.

This book provides a rigorous and informed treatment of the context underlying Woolf's work.It looks at the social, philosophical, and scientific contexts to her work, as well as her family history and the Britain in which she grew up.

The author writes concisely and lucidly, covering all the key information in just a couple of hundred pages.He handles difficult and complex topics clearly and sensitively, and his prose style is fluent and engaging enought to ensure that the reader remains hooked through even more difficult areas.

I shall keep this book by my bed, so that I can refer to it as I read Woolf's other novels.It is already well thumbed! ... Read more

Product Description
The complex novels by Virginia Woolf are seen with clarity and coherence in The Elusive Self, a thorough and detailed literary interpretation by Louise A. Poresky. The result is a reliable map that guides the reader through the nine novels. Adding the wisdom of religion and psychology to her literary criticism, Dr. Poresky demonstrates how Woolf’s characters strive to achieve personal wholeness. The quest progresses sequentially through the novels as a major character in each work struggles against certain demons, whether the superficial dictates of society or the voices that say women cannot be artists, and thus realizes the difference between ego and essence. ... Read more

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The penultimate volume of Woolf's diaries details the mature period of The Years and moments of personal sadness brought by the deaths of Lytton Strachey, Dora Carrington, and Roger Fry. "A book of extraordinary vitality, wit, and beauty" (New York Times Book Review). Edited by Anne Olivier Bell, assisted by Andrew McNeillie; Index. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

page-turner; fascinating; a masterpiece
History, drama, death of loved ones, war, famous people, writing, publishing, post-publishing, Hitler, refugees, aeroplanes droning over the house, no money, no food, outsider, noise, 3 months of bombing London, diaries rescued from rubble, "The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew, The heart less bounding at emotion new, And hope, once crush'd, less quick to spring again.", hungry, make up imaginary meals, no more room of one's own, Hitler believed to be invading in "3 weeks" ., no future, no spending one's elderly years in financial comfort, "observe my own despondency", "I will go down with my colours flying", "write to Ethel and invite myself to stay" (E does not answer) , threatened with rest cure, "L. is doing the rhododendrons..."This, the last of Virginia's diaries is a masterpiece.I read it first, then began with diary 1, then proceeded back to diary 5 and read it for a second time.Highly recommended.....MONTHS LATER;I've discovered that I've just written a review of vol 5, not vol 4. Will fix one of these days!Vol 4 is excellent also with Lytton, Dora, and Roger ending and success, The Waves, fame, Yeats, drive thru Jew-hating Germany, visits, Quentin, Angelica, oh yeah and L writes "Quack ......" ,etc... quite wonderful volume(s) four AND five are!and V.W. at an important time in her life. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (7)

The Misanthrope's Decision
For sixty prolific years, the "Academy" has virtually ignored Virginia Woolf's THE YEARS.Average readers assume that critics would have picked up on the novel's generational gaps, its complicated plotline, or the fact that it's written by Virginia (freaking) Woolf, but they are sadly mistaken.Nobody in academic circles reads this novel, and it sits lonely on library shelves next to irregular printings of TO THE LIGHTHOUSE and ketchup-stained folios of Woolf's forgotten biography, ROGER FRY.

That fact, of course, wasn't enough to deter this huge Virginia fan.The "Academy" isn't always correct - as many Lacanian readings of Chaucer have verified - and THE YEAR's wonderful cover was enough of a sell for this bored college student with an extra weekend.I read the novel once over a spaghetti dinner, and twice over the next day while moving the lawn.Then I devoured it for a final time before writing a review on it.The novel wasn't an awful work, I felt, but it had never really begun: the motor of narrative hadn't started, and the lawn, fecund and fresh, had yet to be mowed.That's not to say I didn't try.I kept a list of characters to kick-start the motor.Here I am, I would say to myself on any given year.I'm following Rose.She's the young feminist, right?Here she is throwing a brick.And she's married, right?No, a little voice in the back of my head would ring.And so would come down the pencil, marking off my list.I made these lists, kept flow-charts, and tried to trace everything into an end.The filmic end came, with its sun shining, but it felt as if I was ready to send the novel away to a publisher, rather than relish it. The experience of reading it was like what writing it must have felt like.

Ultimately, that stylistic complaint is my only major criticism of the novel.Woolf was never a Dickens-esque plotter, but the characters in this novel simply feel like names on the page - and there are a lot of them!We can follow them, but we never feel the desire to.We carry conversations with Mrs. Dalloway because we want to; we talk to Mrs. Ramsay because she perplexes us (and herself); and we yell at Mr. A because he's a jerk.There's a little of that here, but it feels more like a metaphysical trace than a collection.Woolf imprints her face on the glass, rather than waiting for us.

If my experience isn't enough to deter you, I think you should really read it.In a Kaufman-esque moment, you might feel as I did - like the writer on the other side of the page, looking at the reader.I didn't have fun, but I did learn a lot about Woolf.Her hang-ups, frustrations, and impending suicide all mark this novel, and it ranks slightly above average only by feeling like her imaginery autobiography did: honest in its weakness, and weak for its strength.

it took years to read - just kidding!
I refer to the Penguin edition of this book with an introduction and notes by Jeri Johnson.

This is not my favourite Virginia Woolf novel. It is too shapeless for me - perhaps that's what Virginia Woolf was trying to demonstrate - that life is shapeless in its continuation from generation to generation. But to show any meaningful drift to sameness and change I believe we need a much greater perspective than we get from the Pargiters. And when there isn't much direction, much sense of approaching a climax, then, for me anyway, all Virginia Woolf's fine detail and acute observation becomes a tedious reiteration of the ennui of life which I prefer to avoid in literature rather than be reminded of over and over again.

The notes to this novel are quite comprehensive but I was uncommonly annoyed at one point. There is a novel by Philip Dick that I remember reading in which the author explains the correct pronunciation of the main character's name half-way through the novel. Murphy's Law almost guaranteed that I had selected the incorrect pronunciation and had to resound the character's name from that point on. This was a bit annoying. But not half as annoying as when Virginia Woolf tells us that the character North - again half way through the novel - was having his name pronounced incorrectly as if it were a point of the compass. This, of course, is exactly how I pronounced it in my mind. But what other way is there? Neither Virgina Woolf nor Jeri Johnson tell me. I am still mystified.

And perhaps this is the nub of my disenchantment with this novel. Perceptive as the writing might be, I feel an alien in this company, out of my depth amongst a batch of people who know the proper way to pronounce North.

Excellent!
This is one of Woolf's best, if not THE best.It follows a family through decades, showing the changes in them and the changes in the world around them.That stream-of-consciousness style that she is so famous for runs smoothly in The Years, andjust flows over the reader.It was hard for me to tear myself away from this book. . . I had to simply shut the book, often in mid-sentance, to make myself stop reading.This comes highly recommended.

Anticipation
Eleanor felt that the poor enjoyed themselves more than they did.They were stuck at home too much.In 1891 Eleanor Pargiter was a social worker.It is now 1907 and Edward Pargiter, brother of Eleanor, has produced an English translation of Sophocles's Antigone.

Moving forward, it is 1908 and Martin Pargiter has visitedhis father and his sister, Eleanor.1911 produces a scene of Rose with her cousins Sarah and Maggie, daughters of Sir Digby.Maggie has married a Frenchman later on.

There is a meeting of Kitty, Lady Lasswade, and Eleanor.Following the meeting Kitty was going to the opera and so she was dressed in formal clothes.Eleanor thought that Kitty had the great lady's manner.Eleanor felt dowdy compared with Kitty.Edward Pargiter was present at the opera.Lucy Craddock had been Kitty's tutor at Oxford.

Eleanor is found at the country place of her brother Morris's mother in law.Her father died. She had no attachments at the moment.Her sister in law Celia told her there was to be a village fete.Eleanor met Sir William Whatney there.She had not seen him since he had been to India.Peggy and North, her niece and nephew, came in.She thought her growing interest in birds was a sign of old age.

Eleanor sold the family house and made arrangements for Crosby, the servant, to depart.She left with the family dog who soon had to be put down because it was aged, disabled, and suffering.Martin, called Captain Pargiter,did not marry.He encountered Kitty who introduced him to Ann Hillier.Martin said to Kitty that Eleanor was a queer old bird.

During the war Eleanor at one point dined with Maggie and her husband.Maggie felt that Eleanor looked like an abbess.The story shifts to the present day and Eleanor is shown having returned from India.It is noted by one of the characters that Edward and Kitty had been very much in love but that Kitty had married another man. Pleasure is increased by sharing it.

This book is a pleasure to have and to read.Is there a pattern, a theme?Virginia Woolf was a pattern maker.This work anticipates THREE GUINEAS and BETWEEN THE ACTS.It is in a new manner for Virginia Woolf.Leonard Woolf wrote that he did not care for it but stifled his displeasure to spare his wife agony.

A True Masterpiece for all Time.
If an immortal were to ask me what is is like to be mortal, and live with a family and with time and with age, I would hand him this book, and feel confident that he would get a grasp of our experience. Mrs. Woolf has gathered the dimension of time in this novel through simple passages of conversation that left my heart sinking and rising. What an achievement!

I read this after reading Jacob's Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, A Room of One's Own, and The Waves. In this novel she was trying to cut her style back, making it more concise, and moving away from experimentation. Yet, she produced a most unique novel. ... Read more

Product Description
Over six hundred letters covering the first decade of the Woolfs' marriage; the publication of The Voyage Out, Night and Day, and Jacob's Room; the founding of Hogarth Press; the years of World War I; Virginia's two periods of insanity and an attempted suicide. Edited by Nigel Nicolson and Joanne Trautmann; Introduction by Nigel Nicolson; Index; photographs.
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Product Description

Virginia Woolf was already an accomplished novelist and critic when she was commissioned by the British edition of Good Housekeeping to write a series entitled "Six Articles on London Life." Originally published bimonthly, beginning in December 1931, five of the essays were eventually collected and published in 1981. The sixth essay, "Portrait of a Londoner," had been missing from Woolf's oeuvre until it was rediscovered at the University of Sussex in 2004. Ecco is honored to publish the complete collection in the United States for the first time.

Customer Reviews (1)

Essays on a London in the past.
I enjoy reading about London and this book just fit the bill. ... Read more