Virginia Woolf Books

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.

Virginia Woolf was fifty-four on January 25, 1936, some three weeks after this final volume of her diary opens. Its last page was written four days before she drowned herself on March 28, 1941. Edited by Anne Olivier Bell, assisted by Andrew McNeillie; Index; maps.

These years were dominated by one woman and one book. The woman was Ethel Smyth; the book was The Waves. This volume's "unerringly human and confessional tone makes Woolf, at last, a real person" (San Francisco Chronicle). Edited by Nigel Nicolson and Joanne Trautmann; Introduction by Nigel Nicolson; Index; photographs.

The penultimate volume of Woolf's letters, when the author was between the ages of 50 and 53, covers the composition of the Years and the death of Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry. "Her wit flashes, often unexpectedly, in letters of almost every kind" (New Yorker). Edited by Nigel Nicolson and Joanne Trautmann; Introduction by Nigel Nicolson; Index.

Virginia Woolf turned to her diary as to an intimate friend, to whom she could freely and spontaneously confide her thoughts on public events or the joys and trials of domestic life. Between 1st January 1915 and her death in 1941 she regularly recorded her thoughts with unfailing grace, courage, honesty and wit.

Virginia Woolf was fifty-four on January 25, 1936, some three weeks after this final volume of her diary opens. Its last page was written four days before she drowned herself on March 28, 1941.

First published under title: The question of things happening : the letters of Virginia Woolf, vol. II: 1912-1922.

Contains: A Room of One's Own To the Lighthouse Between the Acts Three Guineas Mrs Dalloway Jacob's Room The Waves The Years Orlando Mrs Dalloway, the society hostess Clarissa, is giving a party and her thoughts on that one day, and the interior monologues of others with interwoven lives reveal the characters of the central protagonists. To the Lighthouse is the most autobiographical of Virginia Woolf's novels. Based on her early experiences, it touches on childhood and children's perceptions and desires. It is at its most trenchant when exploring adult relationships and the changing class- structure in the period spanning the Great War. Virginia Woolf's Orlando, 'the longest and most charming love letter in literature,' playfully constructs the figure of Orlando as the fictional embodiment of Woolf's close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West. 'I am writing to a rhythm and not to a plot', said Woolf of The Waves. Regarded as one of her greatest and most original works, it conveys the rhythms of life in synchrony with the cycle of nature and the passage of time. In these, as in A Room of One's Own, Between the Acts, Three Guineas,The Years and Jacob's Room, Virginia Woolf displays her genuine humanity and concern for the experiences that enrich and stultify existence. Her delicate artistry and lyrical prose have established her as a writer of sensitivity and profound talent.

EDITED BY JOANNE TRAUTMANN BANKS, WITH A PREFACE BY HERMIONE LEEThe finest and most enjoyable of Virginia Woolf's letters are brought together in a single volume.

Adeline Virginia Woolf was born in 1882 and was to become a founder of modernist writing. Her background is filled with elements of tragedy that she somehow overcame to become a revered writer. Her mother died when she was 13, her half sister Stella two years later and with it her first of several nervous breakdowns. She began writing professionally at age 20 but her father’s death two years later brought a complete mental collapse and she was briefly institutionalised. Three of her half brothers had sexually abused her so further darkness was added to her life. But out of this came great innovations in writing; she was a pioneer of “stream of consciousness”. Whilst the dark periods continued to interrupt her emotional state her rate of work never ceased. Until on 28 March 1941, Woolf put on her overcoat, filled its pockets with stones, and walked into the River Ouse and drowned herself leaving behind a note which read in part “Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do”.