Known as one of the foremost modernist novelists of the twentieth century, Virginia Woolf also wrote several shorter works. In “A Society,” one of her earlier short stories, a young woman receives a substantial inheritance from her father, on the condition that she reads all of the books in London Library. Distressed by the unsatisfactory quality of the literature itself, she shares her woes with a group of female friends. The women decide that they all must seek out knowledge for themselves, visiting some of England’s most iconic landmarks. A commentary on war, art, and the societal roles of men and women, “A Society” offers a brief but penetrating glimpse into Woolf’s literary genius.

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From 1918 to 1941, even as she penned masterpiece upon masterpiece, Virginia Woolf kept a diary. She poured into it her thoughts, feelings, concerns, objections, interests, and disappointments-resulting in twenty-six volumes that give unprecedented insight into the mind of a genius.

Collected here are the passages most relevant to her work and writing. From exercises in the craft of writing; to locations, events, and people that might inspire scenes in her fiction; to meditations on the work of others, A Writer’s Diary takes a fascinating look at how one of the greatest novelists of the English language prepared, practiced, studied, and felt as she created literary history.

This impressionistic novel by Virginia Woolf marks the author’s first move toward the experimentation for which she would later become recognized. Through a montage of passing images, conversations, and stream-of-consciousness monologues, it tells the story of Jacob Flanders, an idealistic and sensitive young man attempting to reconcile his love of classical culture with the chaotic reality of contemporary society. As Jacob grows from childhood into adulthood, we follow his experiences in college and in travels, in love and in war, through the perspectives and impressions of the various people in his life.

Jacob’s Room established Virginia Woolf’s reputation as a highly poetic and symbolic writer who places emphasis not on plot or action but on the psychological realm of her characters. Hailed by friends such as T. S. Eliot, the book represents a turning point in the history of the English novel. Wrote E. M. Forster, “The impossible has occurred…A new type of fiction has swum into view.”

Jacob’s Room was written in 1922 and is Virginia Woolf’s third novel, the first in which she made a radical shift from the established style of prose narrative writing and began experimenting with the modernist ‘stream of consciousness style’ now so firmly associated with her work and which so shook the literary establishment.

Jacob’s Room is overwhelmingly centered around feelings of absence and emptiness and is a collection of memories and sensations that chart the life of Jacob Flanders, largely observed through the eyes of others. The narrative flows from one topic and one character to another without warning or explanation and there appears to be little connection between these fragments.

Likened by some to an impressionist painting, Jacob’s Room was far ahead of its time and still appears strikingly modern almost a century after it was written. It remains a challenging and richly rewarding literary experience.

Virginia Woolf’s classic “stream of consciousness” novel revolves around one day in a woman’s life in post-war London, 1923.

Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of a party she is to give that evening. As she makes preparations she is flooded with memories and re-examines the choices she has made over the course of her life.

On the same day, the war inflicted Septimus is struggling to keep his dark thoughts and vivid flashbacks from overwhelming him, leading to a catastrophic turn of events.

We encounter a vast array of characters through their internal monologues, all of which touch Clarissa’s life in some way and are all brought together by her party.

This audiobook version has been succinctly broken into chapters reflecting each character’s point of view.

Clarissa Dalloway, elegant and vivacious, is preparing for a party and remembering those she once loved.

In another part of London, Septimus Warren Smith is shell-shocked and on the brink of madness. Smith’s day interweaves with that of Clarissa and her friends, their lives converging as the party reaches its glittering climax.

Past, present, and future are brought together on a momentous June day in 1923.

Considered to be one of Virginia Woolf’s most popular novels, Mrs. Dalloway follows one high-society woman as she goes about her day planning a splendid party for her acquaintances. As she goes about her day, she ponders on the life she could be living had she not married the reliable Richard Dalloway, and instead sought the enigmatic Peter Walsh. At one point, she muses on the fact that she “had not the option” to be with a close female friend of hers. The novel then takes a turn to follow Septimus Smith, First World War veteran plagued with deferred traumatic stress, through his day in the park. As each journey is laid out, the two individuals lead very different paths. Included in Time’s 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since the debut of Time, Mrs. Dalloway, even today, offers timely commentary on issues pertaining to feminism, queerness, mental illness, and existential issues.

‘She had the perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very, dangerous to live even one day.’

Virginia Woolf’s most famous ‘stream of consciousness’ novel, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, records the events of one June day in 1923 – the day on which Clarissa Dalloway is hosting a party in her London home. The novel continues to fascinate and challenge, hinting at homosexuality, mental illness, racial prejudice, infidelity, and unrequited love. It presents a perfect picture of London between the wars, in an England where the class system is still firmly entrenched while carrying throughout an undercurrent of rage at the resulting inequalities.

“Mrs. Dalloway is the reverse side of a novel of action. It is a chronicle of thought, unforgettably done”.Atlanta Constitution Review 1925″Clarissa’s day, the impressions she gives and receives, the memories and recognitions which stir in her, the events which are initiated remotely and engineered almost to touching distance of the impervious Clarissa, capture in a definitive matrix the drift of thought and feeling in a period, the point of view of a class, and seem almost to indicate the strength and weakness of an entire civilization.”New York Times Review 1925

‘Mrs. Dalloway’ is the second Virginia Woolf novel to be released as an audiobook by Raconteurs Audio in association with Spoken Realms, narrated by Helen Lloyd.

‘Mrs. Dalloway’ was originally published in May 1925 and is in the public domain.

Mrs Dalloway was the breakthrough novel by Virginia Woolf that solidified her reputation as one of the most important writers of her era. Written in a new style for the time, the book details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a British socialite in post-First World War England.
Originally written as “The Hours,” Woolf’s novel was based on two earlier short stories, “Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street” and “The Prime Minister.” The book takes place in a single day and describes the eponymous lead character as she prepares for and hosts a party.
Looping backwards and forwards in time, the reader is given a glimpse inside the mind of Mrs. Dalloway as she goes about her day. Received with rapturous reviews upon its debut, Mrs. Dalloway was included on Time Magazine’s list of the 100 best English-language novels ever written.
It is presented here in its original and unabridged format, narrated by renowned actor Sara Nichols

Twenty-four-year-old Rachel Vinrace is launched into a journey of self-discovery when she embarks on a sea voyage to South America with her aunt and uncle. Originally from a London suburb, she meets a menagerie of interesting people while on the trip and strikes up life-changing conversations with them. As her experiences start to shape her into a worldly woman, she begins to find her sense of self and determine what she wants most in the world.

First published in 1915, The Voyage Out marked the literary debut of one of the great pioneers of the modern novel, Virginia Woolf.

Woolf’s witty and lyrical debut follows a group of lively, eccentric British tourists embarking on a sea voyage from London to South America. For Rachel Vinrace, a shy, motherless young lady traveling under the wing of her aunt Helen, this first voyage out into the world becomes a mythic rite of passage into emotional and intellectual maturity.

As the narrative shifts point of view among the mismatched jumble of passengers, Woolf takes the opportunity to satirize Edwardian life while sketching the evolution of her heroine’s understanding.

When the ship finally arrives at the village Santa Marina on the South American coast, Rachel is introduced to a group of English expatriates. Among them is the sensitive young Terence Hewet, an aspiring writer with whom she falls into a doomed romance.

Rachel Vinrace, Virginia Woolf’s first heroine, is a motherless young woman who, at twenty-four, embarks on a sea voyage with a party of other English folk to South America. Guileless, and with only a smattering of education, Rachel is taken under the wing of her aunt Helen, who wishes to teach Rachel “how to live.” Arriving in Santa Marina, a village on the South American coast, Rachel and Helen are introduced to a group of English expatriates. Among them is the young, sensitive Terence Hewet, an aspiring writer, with whom Rachel falls in love. But theirs is ultimately a tale of doomed love, set against a chorus of other stories and other points of view, as the narrative shifts focus between its central and peripheral characters.
Less formally experimental than her later novels, The Voyage Out nonetheless clearly lays bare the poetic style and innovative technique-with its multiple figures of consciousness, its detailed portraits of characters’ inner lives, and its constant shifting between the quotidian and the profound-that are the signature of Woolf’s fiction.

Written in 1937, The Years was the most popular of Virginia Woolf’s novels during her lifetime. It explores a rich variety of themes such as sex, feminism, family life, education, and politics in English society from 1800 to the 1930s, as they affect one large upper-class London family.

The principal theme of this ambitious book is time, threading together three generations of the Pargiter family. The story begins on a day in 1880 in the household of Colonel Abel Pargiter, his dying wife, and their seven children, and it ends in the 1930s with a brilliantly depicted party at which the Pargiters, young and old, pass in review. Important events–births, deaths, marriages, wars–occur in the wings; it is the commonplace moments that are captured here in a sequence of perfectly drawn scenes. As the Pargiters move from the oppressive confines of the Victorian home of the 1880s to the 1930s, they are weighed down by the pressures of war, capitalism, empire, and the rise of Fascism.

The Ramsay family is on holiday on the Isle of Sky in Scotland. As the family and their guests decide on whether or not to visit a nearby lighthouse, Virginia Woolf spins a tale that focuses on the intricate web of family life and the conflict that occurs between genders.

To the Lighthouse is at once a vivid impressionist depiction of a family holiday and a meditation on a marriage, on parenthood and childhood, on grief, tyranny, and bitterness.

Its use of stream of consciousness, reminiscence, and shifting perspectives gives the novel an intimate, poetic essence, and at the time of publication in 1927 it represented an utter rejection of Victorian and Edwardian literary values.

The Ramsey family, with house guests, visit the Isle of Skye at least twice. The plot is not at all the point though, as this is a book about how people think and feel and relate. There’s insight into the world of childhood thought and emotion, and a variety of views of adult cares and perceptions.
I hope this doesn’t make it sound ‘difficult’, it doesn’t need to be – just let the sentences flow and make your own sense of the words. It’s perhaps as close as a novel can come to the highly individual experience of looking at a painting
Produced by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Garret Giuliano
©2021 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) 2021 Eden Garret Giuliano
Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller ‘Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney’ and ‘Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison’. He can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken word albums and video documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. In addition, Giuliano is an occasional lecturer at Northwestern University. He is also a well-known movie actor in such films as ‘Mechanic Resurrection and the ‘Scorpion King’ series, among many. Geoffrey is a near lifelong student of Bhakti (Devotional) Yoga and an ardent animal rights advocate. He makes his home with his son Eden in Bangkok and Vrndavana, and Jaipur India.

“And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees and changing leaves.”

To the Lighthouse chronicles the lives of the Ramsay family and their close friends, from the tranquil and motherly Mrs. Ramsay to the tragic and eccentric Mr. Ramsay, and their eight children and varied guests. Woolf uses the three movements of the novel to capture their complex family allegiances and the tensions between men and women at the time. Centered around their visits to the Isle of Skye between 1910 and 1920, the novel is an examination of the quiet, seemingly trivial moments of everyday life. As the world changes drastically around the Ramsays, they too must come to terms with, and hopefully face head on, their capacity to change along with it.

To the Lighthouse is number fifteen on Modern Library’s list of one hundred best English-language novels of the twentieth century, and it was named as one of the best English-language novels since 1923 by Time magazine.