It is an early summer's morning in 1923, and Clarissa Dalloway is preparing to host a party. As the day unfurls, her mind wanders through the landscape of her past, alighting on old lovers, suppressed desires and paths not taken. Interwoven with Clarissa's story is that of Septimus Warren, a traumatised First World War veteran who is steadily losing his grip on reality.
Mrs. Dalloway is a triumph of literary modernism and the stream-of-consciousness style. It is a novel about the relationship between memory, identity and the passage of time, and ultimately explores the complexities of human connection in a society governed by rigid social norms.