Mrs. Dalloway To the Lighthouse Jacob's Room Monday or Tuesday Virginia Woolf Classics Published in New Editions by Warbler Press "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." "The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one." “Indeed there has never been any explanation of the ebb and flow in our veins--of happiness and unhappiness.” “Once she knows how to read there's only one thing you can teach her to believe in and that is herself.” The “Illegitimate Freedom” of Virginia Woolf’s Early Fiction by Ulrich Baer From the Afterword in the Warbler Classics Edition of Virginia Woolf's Monday or Tuesday The “illegitimate freedom” tentatively explored in her early stories is an important and powerful counterpoint to Woolf’s debilitating struggles with mental illness during her lifetime, which will conclude with her suicide at the age of fifty-nine, in 1941. Reading Monday or Tuesday attentively and with a focus on enjoyment and delight, rather than for plot, can help readers to approach this sense of exuberant and “illegitimate freedom” for themselves. The joy of these stories lies not only in Woolf’s gift for language, sharp sense of humor and startlingly original mind, but in the capacity for self-expression that they offer to readers. Some readers will find the wildly entertaining and bitingly ironic “A Society” or the spirited and inspired “A Mark on the Wall” most exciting since these stories anticipate several themes raised in Woolf’s feminist manifesto, A Room of One’s Own (1929) and her most explicitly political essay, Three Guineas (1938), with the crucial difference that the stories do not proclaim a politics but testify to Woolf’s belief in the autonomy of art. Others might favor “An Unwritten Novel” or “A Haunted House” for its foreshadowing of literary techniques that Woolf develops with such startling effects in Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse. For yet other readers, “Monday or Tuesday” or “The String Quartet” lay out Woolf’s aesthetic approach, which she honed in book after book to defend against the realization that human life has no inherent meaning, in powerfully evocative images. In “Kew Gardens,” Woolf recognizes a tapestry of interdependent relations among animals, plants, humans and their material environment in a way that might serve contemporary efforts to amend the human-centered perspective that causes so many of today’s problems. These short prose pieces also contain original elements not found in Woolf’s later writing. They testify to her dual conviction that the realm of the aesthetic operates according to different rules than do the worlds of politics and social relations, and that life without aesthetic mediation is unbearable. Reading Woolf’s Monday or Tuesday allows us to appreciate the pleasure that can come from literary self-expression, much as viewing a skilled dancer can inspire us to experience the joy of movement for its own sake.
✔ Author(s): Virginia Woolf,Ulrich Baer
✔ Title: Mrs. Dalloway (Warbler Classics Annotated Edition)
✔ Rating : 4.2 out of 5 base on (103 reviews)
✔ ISBN-10: 1959891650
✔ ISBN-13: 9781959891659
✔ Language: English
✔ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
✔ Device compatibles: Android, iOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
Readers' opinions about Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Kara Snyder
This book is a treasure trove of knowledge and wisdom. The insights offered by the characters and their experiences have left a lasting impression on me.
Iris Watts
The rich historical context of the book added a layer of depth that I found fascinating. It was like stepping back in time and experiencing history firsthand.
Tasha Cobbett
The themes of resilience and hope resonated deeply with me. This book taught me valuable life lessons that I'll carry with me for years to come.
