Written for Virginia Woolf's intimate friend, the charismatic, bisexual, writer Vita Sackville-West, Orlando is a playful mock 'biography' of a chameleon-like historical figure who changes sex and identity at will. First masculine, then feminine, Orlando begins life as a young sixteenth-century nobleman, then gallops through three centuries to end up as a woman writer in Virginia Woolf's present day. A wry commentary on gender roles and modes of history, Orlando is also, in Woolf's own words, a light-hearted 'writer's holiday' which delights in its ambiguity and capriciousness.
A Room of One's Own, based on a lecture given at Girton College Cambridge, is one of the great feminist polemics, ranging in its themes from Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte to the silent fate of Shakespeare's gifted (imaginary) sister and the effects of poverty and sexual constraint on female creativity. Three Guineas was published almost a decade later and breaks new ground in its discussion of men, militarism and women's attitudes towards war. These two pieces reveal Virginia Woolf's fiery spirit and sophisticated wit and confirm her status as highly inspirational essayist.
Fantasy, lover offering, exuberant celebration of English life and literature, ORLANDO is a uniquely entertaining novel. Originally conceived by Virginia Woolf as a playful tribute to Vita Sackville - West, ORLANDO's central character lives both as a man and a woman through four centuries. With an introduction by Quentin Bell, this definitive edition contains the original Hogarth Press text as overseen by the author, the illustrations which appeared in the first edition of ORLANDO in 1928, and a list of textual variants that appeared during her lifetime.
A collection of short stories by the author of "Mrs Dalloway" and "To The Lighthouse". Often overlooked by the prominence of her novels and diaries, these short stories underline her search for fresh ways of presenting the relationship between individual lives and the forces of society and history.
