Mrs. Dalloway

By Virginia Woolf

Book Overview

The authorized, original edition of Virginia Woolf's masterpiece and one of the most "moving, revolutionary artworks of the twentieth century" (Michael Cunningham), with a foreword by Maureen Howard.

In this vivid portrait of a single day in a woman's life, Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of preparation for a party while in her mind she is something much more than a perfect society hostess. As she readies her house in post-WWI London for friends and neighbors, she is flooded with remembrances of the past--the passionate loves of her carefree youth, her practical choice of husband, and the approach and retreat of war. And, met with the realities of the present, Clarissa reexamines the choices that brought her there, hesitantly looking ahead to the unfamiliar work of growing old.

From the introspective Clarissa, to the lover who never fully recovered from her rejection, to a war-ravaged stranger in the park, the characters and scope of Mrs. Dalloway--a landmark of psychological fiction--reshape our sense of ordinary life and reshaped English literature as we know it.

"Perhaps her masterpiece...Exquisite and superbly constructed...Required like most writers to choose between the surface and the depths as the basis of her operations, she chooses the surface and then burrows in as far as she can." -E. M. Forster

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156628708
• ISBN13: 9780156628709
• Release Date: September 1990
• Publisher: Mariner Books Classics
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 7.9"
• Age Range: 14 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 9 and higher

Customer Reviews

Boring. Sorry.

I felt no connection to any of the characters. As interesting as watching paint dry. Experimentation in writing is fine if it works. This doesn’t.

I don't get it

I want to like Virginia woolf and Agatha Christy, but this book is soooo hard to read. It's so boring. Yes rich people I get it war sucks and makes you face your mortality. The only good part was her friendship with Sam in the beginning which seemed awesome but then they just both got married and boring pretty quickly. now I don't know if I should bother getting A room of one's own because if I didn't like this I probably just don't like her old boring style.

Nice Resource

This is a great edition for anyone who has never read Virginia Woolf before. There is enough biographical information included at the beginning of the book to give any reader a good idea of Woolf's background before they proceed to the actual novel. It was very helpful for me as it was my first exposure to Woolf. The novel itself is very interesting and the notations were quite helpful to keep the events and places throughout the novel straight.

A challenge,but worth it!

I loved this book, for both what it says - about life, time and relationships - and for how it says it. It is also true, though, that it is one of her less accessible works, and can occasionally be frustrating in its vagueness. To anyone considering buying this book, DO - it's worth it - 2 things that I learnt, though:1. This is probably not good as an introduction to Virginia Woolf, modernism or 'stream of consciousness' writing - it may be a good idea to read "To The Lighthouse" first.....2. If you're a genuis or an English teacher you may understand this right off, I don't know - but for the rest of us, I think that it's worth a second read, the first to feel the rhythm, and the second to actually understand the message (if that doesn't sound too ridiculous!) - otherwise it is easy to get bogged down and frustrated, as I did it the first time I read it. Every time I reread this book, I discover something new, despite the fact that spent almost a month studying it in depth....Good luck!

This is my favorite book.

I was introduced to Virginia Woolf in college when I took an entire class devoted to her work. Although I had never read any of her work before, I quickly became a fan. My professor saved the best for last - The Waves. This book is the most poetic, most profound, most intimate book I have ever read. No one speaks in this book. You follow the characters' lives from childhood to adulthood by entering their minds and listening to their thoughts. At first it is difficult to figure out what is going on. There is no narration except short poetic passages about the sea and the sun's placement over it preceding each section of the book (and each period of the characters' lives). By the middle of the book, you know who is speaking without reading the name of the character. You know how they think. I strongly encourage anyone who is even slightly curious to buy this book. This small investment can change how you view the world. The Waves takes much longer to get through than some whodunit, but that's the beauty of it. My husband and I read a passage at night before going to bed. It's best when read slowly, with time to reflect after a small amount of pages. You'll be highlighting sentences that make great quotes as you go. What a glorious book!