Customer Reviews

Selected Works of Virginia Woolf (Wordsworth Special Editions)

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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.

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.

-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.

I like it very much. Simply because it reminds me the style of elementary school, which was the style of adults, too, story telling wise, telling to one another How do you do wise, or any other wise, just by the first few words in the work, which is why it appeals to the retired age, much more than the dwellers of the material world, who possibly couldn't or would not have the zest to grasp the meaning of the work, even as an English major, which frankly, is not the literature avid of two decades ago, who did it for the sake of fulfillment of inner soul, and sadly, not the outer impression, and additionally, brought with it satisfaction and well being, irrespective of fat bank account, or lack of it. I personally, read a few pages everyday, during meals, which is the only moment my mind is free, and more so that it takes me closer to the life I cherish and try to incarnate as much as I can. The hard cover is very old fashioned Bourdeaux cloth and a matching dye covered paper edge, which the very sight of it would add to your living room decoration, or maybe complement it, no matter if you get to put aside the hubbub of the urban life to attend to it for an hour or two, or not.

This book was in better condition than I expected. It is of excellent quality and binding. I was very pleased with this selection and it was delivered within the exact delivery dates. I can add it to my library knowing that it has lasting quality.