This is the story of the Ramsays, based on Virginia Woolf's own family. Written in the stream-of-consciousness style, the book examines family relationships, the traditional roles of the sexes, the tensions and love between husband and wife and the resentment children can feel for their parents.
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.
To the Lighthouse is a 1927 novel by Virginia Woolf. The novel centers on the Ramsays and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920. Following and extending the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel Proust and James Joyce, the plot of To the Lighthouse is secondary to its philosophical introspection. Cited as a key example of the literary technique of multiple focalization, the novel includes little dialogue and almost no action; most of it is written as thoughts and observations. The novel recalls childhood emotions and highlights adult relationships. Among the book’s many tropes and themes are those of loss, subjectivity, the nature of art and the problem of perception. In 1998, the Modern Library named To the Lighthouse No. 15 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2005, the novel was chosen by Time Magazine as one of the one hundred best English-language novels since 1923. (more on www.wisehouse-publishing.com)