ORLANDO (VINTAGE CLASSICS WOOLF SERIES)

Virginia Woolf was born in London in 1882. After her fathers death in 1904 Virginia and her sister the painter Vanessa Bell moved to Bloomsbury and became the centre of śThe Bloomsbury Group. This informal collective of artists and writers exerted a powerful influence over early twentiethcentury British culture. In 1912 Virginia married Leonard Woolf a writer and social reformer. Three years later her first novel The Voyage Out was published followed by Night and Day (1919) and Jacobs Room (1922). Between 1925 and 1931 Virginia Woolf produced what are now regarded as her finest masterpieces from Mrs Dalloway (1925) to The Waves (1931). She also maintained an astonishing output of literary criticism short fiction journalism and biography. On 28 March 1941 a few months before the publication of her final novel Between the Acts Virginia Woolf committed suicide.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HELEN DUNMOREAs his tale begins Orlando is a passionate young nobleman whose days are spent in rowdy revelry filled with the colourful delights of Queen Elizabeths court. By the close he will have transformed into a modern 36yearold woman and three centuries will have passed. Orlando will not only witness the making of history from its edge but will find that his unique position as a woman who knows what it is to be a man will give him insight into matters of the heart.Orlando is the wittiest little book a pleasure: it makes me laugh every time I read itUndoubtedly Virginia Woolfs most intense and one of the most singular [novels] of our era