To the lighthouse

More about the book

Among the greatest literary achievements of this century is To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf's fifth novel. It was greeted with a chorus of praise, was the first to win her a large public, and has remained the most popular of all her novels. It is set on a Hebridean island, overlooked by a distant lighthouse, where an English family and assorted guests are enjoying the long summer. Mrs. Ramsay is beautiful, dominant, generous. Her power is gentle but irresistible. All of them - her eccentric and demanding husband, her flock of children, the lovers, the crusty old writer, the independent woman painter, the awkward young academic - are drawn into her sphere of influence. She flatters vanities, builds friendships, protects her own. Her husband's passion is for abstract truth; hers is for reality, in particular the reality of love, married life and family. But the summer ends. War and death bring changes. The next journey to the lighthouse is a very different one.