Selected Works of Virginia Woolf (Wordsworth Special Editions) [Paperback]

Virginia Woolf (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 5, 2005 | Series: Wordsworth Special Edition

The delicate artistry and lyrical prose of Woolf's novels have established her as a writer of sensitivity and profound talent.
Virginia Woolf displays genuine humanity and concern for the experiences that enrich and stultify existence. Society hostess, Clarissa Dalloway is giving a party and her thoughts on that one day, and the interior monologues of others with interwoven lives reveal the characters of the central protagonists.
To the Lighthouse is the most autobiographical of Virginia Woolf's novels. Based on her early experiences, it touches on childhood and children's perceptions and desires. It is at its most trenchant when exploring adult relationships and the changing class-structure in the period spanning the Great War.
Orlando, 'the longest and most charming love letter in literature', playfully constructs the figure of Orlando as the fictional embodiment of Woolf's close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West.
'I am writing to a rhythm and not to a plot', said Woolf of The Waves. Regarded as one of her greatest and most original works, it conveys the rhythms of life in synchrony with the cycle of nature and the passage of time. Other titles included in this book are: Jacob's Room, A Room of One's Own, Three Guineas and Between the Acts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1024 pages
• Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Ltd; First Printing Writing in Margins edition (August 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1840220589
• ISBN-13: 978-1840220582
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #666,485 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882-1941) was one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century. An admired literary critic, she authored many essays, letters, journals, and short stories in addition to her groundbreaking novels.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommend: Excellent Value for the Buyer, January 28, 2007

By 

J. E. Robinson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Selected Works of Virginia Woolf (Wordsworth Special Editions) (Paperback)

This is a great way to read Virginia Woolf. My only complaints are that it is heavy to lift and hold and it has no analysis. However, at the low price you get most of her major novels plus two non-fiction essays in one fat book. So overall it is excellent value for the price.

I read the Voyage Out before buying the present book. That is Woolf's first novel. Then I read this collection. I skipped her second novel - which is considered to be a flop - and which is not here in the collected works. The present collection starts with her third novel. The Voyage Out was Woolf's first major work. It took years to write, and she took few chances. Her brother's company was the publisher. It has been mostly forgotten with the passage of time. From this point going forward she would spend less time on each novel and would publish through her own company, the Bloomsbury Publishing Company.

The Voyage Out is simple and straightforward work. It is over 400 pages long. After her second novel she decided to be more risky and creative, and we see that change in the works here in the collection starting with "Jacob's Room" and "To The Lighthouse," and virtually in all of her other novels that followed. Woolf is equally famous for her non-fiction polemics on the state of women in literature and two are included here.

What is interesting in the current collection is that we see the transformation in her style and her approach starting with Jacob's Room. Woolf uses the stream of consciousness technique to effectively portray the chaos and shortness of Jacob's life. Jacob becomes a soldier in WW I. One starts off with certain questions about Woolf's technique as one reads and wonders where the story is going. But at some point in the novel, the process is revealed to the reader, i.e.: from the pandemonium of Jacob's life as portrayed by Woolf through the use of the stream of consciousness technique, we eventually have clarity.

The collection contains a number of other important works including Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, The Waves, and Between the Acts. Also, it contains A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas, which are non-fiction polemics or essays. It lacks the photographs found in some copies of Three Guineas.

In addition to the present book I bought A Room of One's Own, Three Guineas ISBN-10: 0141184604 and ISBN-13: 978-0141184609 (same book) because of the excellent introduction to Virginia Woolf.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent single volume of Woolf's major works, July 8, 2010

By 

Octave - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Selected Works of Virginia Woolf (Wordsworth Library Collection) (New Library Collection) (Hardcover)

I can't add much to J.E. Robinson's helpful review above, except to mention that this item is indeed an exceptional bargain. Though in some ways you get what you pay for: the binding seems sturdy and attractive, at least as durable as the average Everyman's Library edition; but the paper is more or less mass-market paperback quality, maybe a little better; the font is attractive and readable but perhaps a point or two small to my taste. I actually didn't find the weight of the book very heavy at all, thanks to this paper-stock choice. The striking photo of her (which I prefer to Nicole Kidman's portrayal of her in the the film THE HOURS, prosthetic nose and all!) on the cover seems to be pasted on to a no-frills cloth hardcover, which is a little cheap, but no big deal of course.

Fifteen bucks is chump change for a single portable watershed collection by an essential pre-WW2 English novelist, and some of the most luminous prose in English literature of the 20th century.

I should also mention that I ordered mine when the item was "temporarily not available", and I still received it very quickly (in about a week or so), so perhaps Amazon orders these as needed from the publisher.

5.0 out of 5 stars excellen, January 21, 2012

By 

Robert K - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Selected Works of Virginia Woolf (Wordsworth Library Collection) (New Library Collection) (Hardcover)

-love Virginia WOOLF. I DIDN'T THINK ANYONE COULD COMPETE WITH JOHN UPDIKE FOR TOP HONORS IN 20TH CENTURY LITERATURE;

I'M HAPPY TO WRITE; I WAS WRONG.