Maura Del Serra Books

'Brilliant interweaving of personal experience, imaginative musing and political clarity' Kate Mosse Virginia Woolf exposes the prejudices and constraints against which women writers struggled for centuries, and argues for a more equal literary establishment. This volume combines two books which were among the greatest contributions to feminist literature this century. Together they form a brilliant attack on sexual inequality. A Room of One's Own, first published in 1929, is a witty, urbane and persuasive argument against the intellectual subjection of women, particularly women writers. The sequel, Three Guineas, is a passionate polemic which draws a startling comparison between the tyrannous hypocrisy of the Victorian patriarchal system and the evils of fascism. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HERMIONE LEE

Set on the coast of England against the vivid background of the sea, <i>The Waves</i> introduces six characters—three men and three women—who are grappling with the death of a beloved friend, Percival. Instead of describing their outward expressions of grief, Virginia Woolf draws her characters from the inside, revealing them through their thoughts and interior soliloquies. As their understanding of nature’s trials grows, the chorus of narrative voices blends together in miraculous harmony, remarking not only on the inevitable death of individuals but on the eternal connection of everyone. The novel that most epitomizes Virginia Woolf’s theories of fiction in the working form, <i>The Waves</i> is an amazing book very much ahead of its time. It is a poetic dreamscape, visual, experimental, and thrilling.