Mrs. Dalloway (Wordsworth Classics) [Paperback]

Clarissa Dalloway is civilised--without the ostentation of a socialite, but with enough distinction to attract them to her parties. She finds excess offensive, but surrounds herself with the highest quality and has an abhorrence for anything ugly or awkward. Mrs. Dalloway is as much a character study as it is a commentary on the ills and benefits society gleans from class. Through Virginia Woolf, we spend a day with Clarissa as she interacts with servants, her children, her husband, and even an ex-lover. As she plans and executes one of her celebrated parties, she reveals inner machinations incongruous with her class-defined behaviors, that ultimately enable her to transcend them.

" Mrs. Dalloway contains some of the most beautiful, complex, incisive and idiosyncratic sentences ever written in English, and that alone would be reason enough to read it. It is one of the most moving, revolutionary artworks of the twentieth century."
-- Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

One day in the life of a woman preparing to give a party - and a groundbreaking work of twentienth-century literary fiction --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

This Wordsworth Edition includes an exclusive 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 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.

The delicate artistry and lyrical prose of Woolf's fourth novel have established her as a writer of profound talent.

On a beautiful June morning, Clarissa Dalloway, a fashionable London hostess, prepares for a party she is to give that coming evening. Although she is now in her early fifties and happily married, her thoughts throughout the day constantly return to a summer long ago in her youth, when she had refused to marry the bright and brilliant Peter Walsh. It was an anguished decision, one she had 'borne about her for years like an arrow sticking in her heart'. She reflects upon it now not only because her old suitor is due to return to London but also because her daughter, Elizabeth, is swiftly approaching eighteen, on the verge of womanhood.

Witnessing the female cycle of sexual flowering, love and marriage about to repeat itself in the next generation, Clarissa realises that she must re-assess the events of her youth before she can embark on the next stage of her life.

'Mrs Dalloway' marked an important stage in Virginia Woolf's development as a writer. With this book, she finally broke away from the traditional form of the English novel, establishing herself as a writer of genius.

“There is no writer who can give the illusion of reality with more certainty… a perfection of style which is at once solid and ethereal.”
SPECTATOR

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is now recognised as a major 20th century author, a great novelist and essayist, and a key figure in literary history as a feminist and modernist. Elaine Showalter is Professor of English at Princeton University and a prominent feminist literary critic. Stella McNichol has written on, and edited, Woolf's novels. Julia Briggs is General Editor for the works of Virginia Woolf in Penguin. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.