Mrs Dalloway: Biography of a novel (Biography of a Novel) [9781526176837]

Overview

The first book in the ‘Biography of a novel’ series offers a compelling account of a modernist masterpiece.

The fourth and best-known of Virginia Woolf’s novels, Mrs Dalloway is a masterpiece of modernist writing. Its dual narratives follow a day in the life of a wealthy housewife and a shell-shocked war veteran, capturing their inner worlds with a vividness that has rarely been equalled.

Mrs Dalloway: Biography of a novel offers a lively account of this enduring classic, providing Woolf lovers with a wealth of information about the novel’s writing, publication and reception. It follows Woolf’s process from her first notes through to her creation of what was quickly recognised as a major advance in prose fiction. It then traces the novel’s remarkable legacy to the present day.

Woolf wrote that she wanted her novel ‘to give life & death, sanity & insanity… to criticise the social system, & to show it at work, at its most intense.’ Mrs Dalloway: Biography of a novel reveals how she achieved this ambition, creating a book that will be read by generations to come.