by Merve Emre
First published 2021
Oxford scholar Merve Emre takes readers inside Virginia Woolf's creative process as she wrote her fourth novel in 1925. Emre draws from Woolf's personal diaries and writing notes to reveal how the author constructed her story of Clarissa Dalloway, an upper-class London woman preparing for an evening party. The annotation illuminates Woolf's satirical take on English society and her innovative stream-of-consciousness technique that revolutionized modern fiction. Based on the original British edition, this volume includes hundreds of illustrations and rare photographs from Woolf's personal life. Emre's detailed commentary guides readers through the novel's complex narrative structure and artistic innovations. The book serves both newcomers to Woolf's work and longtime admirers seeking deeper understanding of her craft.
Genres: fiction, classics, literary-criticism, 20th-century, british-literature, biography-memoir, art-history, academic
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: England, London
Period: 1925
242 pages · Hardcover · Liveright