Mrs. Dalloway

By Virginia Woolf

"One of her greatest achievements, a book whose afterlife continues to inspire new generations of writers and readers." — The Guardian

This modernist masterpiece, originally published in 1925, chronicles a day in the life of an upper-class Englishwoman. Revolutionary in its psychological realism, the third-person narrative switches between Clarissa Dalloway and her fictional counterpart, Septimus Smith, a shell-shocked World War I veteran. Virginia Woolf's pioneering stream-of-consciousness technique portrays the fragmented yet fluid nature of time and illustrates the commonality of perceptions shared across social barriers.
A major literary figure of the twentieth century, Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) wrote such groundbreaking essays as "A Room of One's Own" in addition to numerous letters, journals, and short stories. Her other novels include To the Lighthouse and Orlando.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: Jan 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9780486849140

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was an English novelist. Born in London, she was raised in a family of eight children by Julia Prinsep Jackson, a model and philanthropist, and Leslie Stephen, a writer and critic. Homeschooled alongside her sisters, including famed painter Vanessa Bell, Woolf was introduced to classic literature at an early age. Following the death of her mother in 1895, Woolf suffered her first mental breakdown. Two years later, she enrolled at King’s College London, where she studied history and classics and encountered leaders of the burgeoning women’s rights movement. Another mental breakdown accompanied her father’s death in 1904, after which she moved with her Cambridge-educated brothers to Bloomsbury, a bohemian district on London’s West End. There, she became a member of the influential Bloomsbury Group, a gathering of leading artists and intellectuals including Lytton Strachey, John Maynard Keynes, Vanessa Bell, E.M. Forster, and Leonard Woolf, whom she would marry in 1912. Together they founded the Hogarth Press, which would publish most of Woolf’s work. Recognized as a central figure of literary modernism, Woolf was a gifted practitioner of experimental fiction, employing the stream of consciousness technique and mastering the use of free indirect discourse, a form of third person narration which allows the reader to enter the minds of her characters. Woolf, who produced such masterpieces as Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928), and A Room of One’s Own (1929), continued to suffer from depression throughout her life. Following the German Blitz on her native London, Woolf, a lifelong pacifist, died by suicide in 1941. Her career cut cruelly short, she left a legacy and a body of work unmatched by any English novelist of her day.

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MRS. DALLOWAY

Virginia Woolf

Dover Publications, Inc.

Garden City, New York

DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS

General Editor: Susan L. Rattiner

Editor of This Volume: Janet B. Kopito

Copyright

Copyright © 2021 by Dover Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 2021, is an unabridged replication of a standard edition of the work. A new introductory Note has been specically prepared for this edition.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Woolf, Virginia, 1882–1941, author.

Title: Mrs. Dalloway / Virginia Woolf.

Description: Dover edition. | Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2021. | Series: Dover thrift editions | An unabridged republication of a standard edition of the work—Title page verso. | Summary: ‘One of her greatest achievements, a book whose afterlife continues to inspire new generations of writers and readers.’ —The Guardian. This modernist masterpiece, originally published in 1925, chronicles a day in the life of an upper-class Englishwoman. Revolutionary in its psychological realism, the third-person narrative switches between Mrs. Dalloway and her counterpart, Septimus Smith, a shell-shocked World War I veteran. Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness technique portrays the fragmented yet fluid nature of time and illustrates the commonality of perceptions shared by individuals across social barriers —Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020012932 | ISBN 9780486845357 (paperback) | ISBN 0486845354 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Triangles (Interpersonal relations)—Fiction. | Middle-aged women—Fiction. | Married women—Fiction. | Suicide victims—Fiction.

Classification: LCC PR6045.O72 M7 2021 | DDC 823/.912—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020012932

Manufactured in the United States by LSC Communications

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www.doverpublications.com

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2020

Note

VIRGINIA WOOLF, BORN Adeline Virginia Stephen on January 25, 1882, was thrust headlong into the world of books. Her father, Sir Leslie Stephen, was a consummate man of letters, notably as the first editor of the massive Dictionary of National Biography; a friend of writers such as Henry James, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, and George Eliot; and a husband to William Thackeray’s daughter Minny. After Minny’s death, Stephen married Julia Duckworth, with whom he had four children in quick succession—Vanessa (1879), Thoby (1880), Virginia (1882), and Adrian (1883). During Virginia’s childhood, the household at 22 Hyde Park Gate in London’s Kensington neighborhood contained not only her brothers and sister but four half-siblings as well. Visitors to the house were the cream of Victorian literary society.

Julia’s death from influenza in 1895 led to the first of the mental breakdowns that would plague Virginia throughout her life. After her father’s death in 1904, Virginia had a severe collapse and was confined briefly to a nursing home, where she attempted suicide. Vanessa, meanwhile, arranged for the family to move to 46 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury. Here Thoby initiated regular Thursday-evening gatherings for the coterie of bright young men he had come to know at Cambridge, including Leonard Woolf, Lytton Strachey, Clive Bell, and John Maynard Keynes. It became known as the Bloomsbury Group.

Virginia Woolf began contributing essays to The Times Literary Supplement in 1905. In 1912, when she was close to finishing her first novel (Melymbrosia, later renamed The Voyage Out), Leonard Woolf returned to England from his colonial administrative job in Ceylon. Virginia was acquainted with Leonard through Thoby, and they shared a love of writing and literature. Virginia and Leonard were married that August. Leonard proved to be a patient and nurturing husband—when Virginia had a severe breakdown the following year, he nursed her back to health.

In the 1920s, Woolf produced some of her best writing. Especially with her novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To The Lighthouse (1927), and The Waves (1931), her reputation grew as an innovator, due to her skillful use of stream of consciousness to reveal the subtleties of her characters’ thoughts and feelings. The 1930s were a less happy decade for the Woolfs, darkened by the deaths of friends and the prospect of war. In 1940, bombed out of their London flat, they moved to their country home in Sussex. The following spring, Woolf became severely depressed, consumed by the idea that Between the Acts (her final novel) was flawed and not worthy of publication. Leonard, deeply worried, called in their local doctor. Two days later, on March 28, 1941, Virginia filled her pockets with stones and walked into the River Ouse. The suicide note she left for Leonard mentioned her fear of madness as well as her love for her husband.

Framed within a single day, Mrs. Dalloway captures the thoughts of Clarissa Dalloway, a well-to-do Englishwoman, as she walks through London in search of flowers for her dinner party that evening. Her day begins on a positive note: What a morning—fresh as if issued to children on a beach . . . the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June, she muses. As Clarissa makes her way through the city, her mind wanders as she recalls a suitor, Peter Walsh, who has returned to England and will attend the party and whom she believes she was right not to marry, as well as Sally Seton, an old friend with whom she once shared a kiss. The lingering effects of World War I manifest in the character of Septimus Warren Smith, a thirtyish veteran who suffers terribly from emotional trauma (shell shock) due to his experiences as a soldier. Like Clarissa, the hypersensitive Septimus

is affected by the sight and recollection of simple things: some commercial skywriting brings him to tears with its smoke words languishing and melting in the sky. Memory and how it dominates the thoughts of both Clarissa and Septimus are explored by Woolf as she leads the two through London, culminating in Clarissa’s party and Septimus’s reckoning with the past.

T. N. R. Rogers

mrs. dalloway

MRS. DALLOWAY SAID she would buy the flowers herself.

For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer’s men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning—fresh as if issued to children on a beach.

What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her, when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen; looking at the flowers, at the trees with the smoke winding off them and the rooks rising, falling; standing and looking until Peter Walsh said, Musing among the vegetables?—was that it?—I prefer men to cauliflowers—was that it? He must have said it at breakfast one morning when she had gone out on to the terrace—Peter Walsh. He would be back from India one of these days, June or July, she forgot which, for his letters were awfully dull; it was his sayings one remembered; his eyes, his pocket-knife, his smile, his grumpiness and, when millions of things had utterly vanished—how strange it was!—a few sayings like this about cabbages.

She stiffened a little on the kerb, waiting for Durtnall’s van to pass. A charming woman, Scrope Purvis thought her (knowing her as one does know people who live next door to one in Westminster); a touch of the bird about her, of the jay, blue-green, light, vivacious, though she was over fifty, and grown very white since her illness. There she perched, never seeing him, waiting to cross, very upright.

For having lived in Westminster—how many years now? over twenty,—one feels even in the midst of the traffic, or waking at night, Clarissa was positive, a particular hush, or solemnity; an ­indescribable pause; a suspense (but that might be her heart, affected, they said, by influenza) before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. Such fools we are, she thought, crossing Victoria Street. For Heaven only knows why one loves it so, how one sees it so, making it up, building it round one, tumbling it, creating it every moment afresh; but the veriest frumps, the most dejected of miseries sitting on doorsteps (drink their downfall) do the same; can’t be dealt with, she felt positive, by Acts of Parliament for that very reason: they love life. In people’s eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June.

For it was the middle of June. The War was over, except for some one like Mrs. Foxcroft at the Embassy last night eating her heart out because that nice boy was killed and now the old Manor House must go to a cousin; or Lady Bexborough who opened a bazaar, they said, with the telegram in her hand, John, her favourite, killed; but it was over; thank Heaven—over. It was June. The King and Queen were at the Palace. And everywhere, though it was still so early, there was a beating, a stirring of galloping ponies, tapping of cricket bats; Lords, Ascot, Ranelagh and all the rest of it; wrapped in the soft mesh of the grey-blue morning air, which, as the day wore on, would unwind them, and set down on their lawns and pitches the bouncing ponies, whose forefeet just struck the ground and up they sprung, the whirling young men, and laughing girls in their transparent muslins who, even now, after dancing all night, were taking their absurd woolly dogs for a run; and even now, at this hour, discreet old dowagers were shooting out in their motor cars on errands of mystery; and the shopkeepers were fidgeting in their windows with their paste and diamonds, their lovely old sea-green brooches in eighteenth-century settings to tempt Americans (but one must economise, not buy things rashly for Elizabeth), and she, too, loving it as she did with an absurd and faithful passion, being part of it, since her people were courtiers once in the time of the Georges, she, too, was going that very night to kindle and illuminate; to give her party. But how strange, on entering the Park, the silence; the mist; the hum; the slow-swimming happy ducks; the pouched birds waddling; and who should be coming along with his back against the Government buildings, most appropriately, carrying a despatch box stamped with the Royal Arms, who but Hugh Whitbread; her old friend Hugh—the admirable Hugh!

Good-morning to you, Clarissa! said Hugh, rather extravagantly, for they had known each other as children. Where are you off to?

I love walking in London, said Mrs. Dalloway. Really it’s better than walking in the country.

They had just come up—unfortunately—to see doctors. Other people came to see pictures; go to the opera; take their daughters out; the Whitbreads came to see doctors. Times without number Clarissa had visited Evelyn Whitbread in a nursing home. Was Evelyn ill again? Evelyn was a good deal out of sorts, said Hugh, intimating by a kind of pout or swell of his very well-covered, manly, extremely handsome, perfectly upholstered body (he was almost too well dressed always, but presumably had to be, with his little job at Court) that his wife had some internal ailment, nothing serious, which, as an old friend, Clarissa Dalloway would quite understand without requiring him to specify. Ah yes, she did of course; what a nuisance; and felt very sisterly and oddly conscious at the same time of her hat. Not the right hat for the early morning, was that it? For Hugh always made her feel, as he bustled on, raising his hat rather extravagantly and assuring her that she might be a girl of eighteen, and of course he was coming to her party to-night, Evelyn absolutely insisted, only a little late he might be after the party at the Palace to which he had to take one of Jim’s boys,—she always felt a little skimpy beside Hugh; schoolgirlish; but attached to him, partly from having known him always, but she did think him a good sort in his own way, though Richard was nearly driven mad by him, and as for Peter Walsh, he had never to this day forgiven her for liking him.

She could remember scene after scene at Bourton—Peter furious; Hugh not, of course, his match in any way, but still not a positive imbecile as Peter made out; not a mere barber’s block. When his old mother wanted him to give up shooting or to take her to Bath he did it, without a word; he was really unselfish, and as for saying, as Peter did, that he had no heart, no brain, nothing but the manners and breeding of an English gentleman, that was only her dear Peter at his worst; and he could be intolerable; he could be impossible; but adorable to walk with on a morning like this.

(June had drawn out every leaf on the trees. The mothers of Pimlico gave suck to their young. Messages were passing from the Fleet to the Admiralty. Arlington Street and Piccadilly seemed to chafe the very air in the Park and lift its leaves hotly, brilliantly, on waves of that divine vitality which Clarissa loved. To dance, to ride, she had adored all that.)

For they might be parted for hundreds of years, she and Peter; she never wrote a letter and his were dry sticks; but suddenly it would come over her, If he were with me now what would he say?—some days, some sights bringing him back to her calmly, without the old bitterness; which perhaps was the reward of having cared for people; they came back in the middle of St. James’s Park on a fine ­morning—indeed they did. But Peter—however beautiful the day might be, and the trees and the grass, and the little girl in pink—Peter never saw a thing of all that. He would put on his spectacles, if she told him to; he would look. It was the state of the world that interested him; Wagner, Pope’s poetry, people’s characters eternally, and the defects of her own soul. How he scolded her! How they argued! She would marry a Prime Minister and stand at the top of a staircase; the perfect hostess he called her (she had cried over it in her bedroom), she had the makings of the perfect hostess, he said.

So she would still find herself arguing in St. James’s Park, still making out that she had been right—and she had too—not to marry him. For in marriage a little licence, a little independence there must be between people living together day in day out in the same house; which Richard gave her, and she him. (Where was he this morning for instance? Some committee, she never asked what.) But with Peter everything had to be shared; everything gone into. And it was intolerable, and when it came to that scene in the little garden by the fountain, she had to break with him or they would have been destroyed, both of them ruined, she was convinced; though she had borne about with her for years like an arrow sticking in her heart the grief, the anguish; and then the horror of the moment when some one told her at a concert that he had married a woman met on the boat going to India! Never should she forget all that! Cold, heartless, a prude, he called her. Never could she understand how he cared. But those Indian women did presumably—silly, pretty, flimsy nincompoops. And she wasted her pity. For he was quite happy, he assured her—perfectly happy, though he had never done a thing that they talked of; his whole life had been a failure. It made her angry still.

She had reached the Park gates. She stood for a moment, looking at the omnibuses in Piccadilly.

She would not say of any one in the world now that they were this or were that. She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. She had a 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. Not that she thought herself clever, or much out of the ordinary. How she had got through life on the few twigs of knowledge Fräulein Daniels gave them she could not think. She knew nothing; no ­language, no history; she scarcely read a book now, except memoirs in bed; and yet to her it was absolutely absorbing; all this; the cabs passing; and she would not say of Peter, she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that.

Her only gift was knowing people almost by instinct, she thought, walking on. If you put her in a room with some one, up went her back like a cat’s; or she purred. Devonshire House, Bath House, the house with the china cockatoo, she had seen them all lit up once; and remembered Sylvia, Fred, Sally Seton—such hosts of people; and ­dancing all night; and the waggons plodding past to market; and driving home across the Park. She remembered once throwing a shilling into the Serpentine. But every one remembered; what she loved was this, here, now, in front of her; the fat lady in the cab. Did it matter then, she asked herself, walking towards Bond Street, did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely; all this must go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely? but that somehow in the streets of London, on the ebb and flow of things, here, there, she survived, Peter survived, lived in each other, she being part, she was positive, of the trees at home; of the house there, ugly, rambling all to bits and pieces as it was; part of people she had never met; being laid out like a mist between the people she knew best, who lifted her on their branches as she had seen the trees lift the mist, but it spread ever so far, her life, herself. But what was she dreaming as she looked into Hatchards’ shop window? What was she trying to recover? What image of white dawn in the country, as she read in the book spread open:

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun

Nor the furious winter’s rages.

This late age of the world’s experience

Reviews for Mrs. Dalloway

[tpollack-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's very hard book to review, but let's leave it at this: you have to read it.

[piccoline · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Woolf is amazing. To read her is to feel understood, to feel human, and to feel very grateful to be human. Her narrative choices are almost flawless throughout, especially her handling of the final few pages.

[poetontheone · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

For the reader of Woolf’s novel, the titular character is as much defined by the thoughts of those who have known her as she is by her own inner thoughts. Many people characterize Mrs. Dalloway by her relationship to Richard, by her existence as a wife and a homemaker who is expected to maintain roles in relation to her class and her gender. She seems to find fulfillment in throwing parties and maneuvering through English social life. However, does the opening sentence, “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself,” establish agency for her character? Is it not odd that someone of her standing goes out to buy the flowers rather than sending a servant to do it? This sense of agency is false, because the act doesn’t grant her any authentic independent identity; it does not make her one “who [does] things for themselves” (10). Her self conception is confined by her marital role. “She had the oddest sense of being herself invisible […] this being Mrs. Dalloway; not even Clarissa any more” (11). She is still operating within her role as an upper class married woman and she, at least in part, recognizes her loss of autonomy.However there are others, particularly Peter and Sally, who knew her before she was Mrs. Dalloway, when she was wholly Clarissa. According to Annalee Edmonson, “Woolf creates her title character from both internal and external perspectives because she is more preoccupied with questions about what George Butte refers to as ‘complex intersubjectivity’ —how do networks of gesturing bodies and consciousnesses account for one another? – than she is with questions of subjectivity [such as] who is the ‘real’ Mrs. Dalloway” (21-22)1. Her identity is articulated by different perspectives, including her own, but also by how she was defined by herself and others in the past. “Clarissa,” who saw herself rejoicing in her close relationship with Sally years ago, characterizes herself differently in the role of the married woman going out to by flowers. Descriptions of her relationship with Sally possess a sense of awe and warmth, which are lacking in her mechanical tasks as a wife and socialite. Further, Peter’s incessant fascination with, if no longer love for, her hinges on him trying to articulate her character. He finds her all at once skeptical, dull, and frightening, and eager to enjoy. This odd mixture of qualities could have been utilized by her in a different way, but Peter sees these qualities as subsumed by or engineered in service of her identity as Mrs. Richard Dalloway. Peter notes that the parties “were all for him, or for her idea of him” (77). Is she really fulfilled by these parties after all?Many different articulations of the identities of “Clarissa” and “Mrs. Dalloway” by herself and others are given throughout the novel, and they are not necessarily distinct nor complementary. However, “Clarissa” implies a sense of agency or selfhood which is either lost or at the very least unfulfilled in the vantage points of this narrative. This is evinced by many instances, including Peter’s thoughts above and by Mrs. Dalloway’s own fears of her invisibility. For the novel to have been called Clarissa would be to discount how her identity has been molded, and perhaps even fragmented, by her existence as a well-mannered wife.

[kazzablanca · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book must have been brilliant and shocking in its time. Its stream of conscience narrative seems far ahead of the era.I did sometimes struggle to hold on to the thread, as the narrative changed from one character to another without any warning. I found that I really did need to concentrate to keep the charater's voice solid in my mind.However, whilst I truly appreciate the skill of the writing, this is not a book that drew me back to its pages.

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I was assigned this book several times in high school and college and did my way to cheat via Monarch notes, because words can not express how tedious and boring I found this book. Hated it. Recently, I wanted to read Cunningham's "The Hours" because I was intrigued by the film. I knew that Mrs Dalloway was one source for the novel, so wanting to get more out of my reading I returned to this novel, thinking, well, maybe being more of a sophisticated reader I'll enjoy it now. I can't say I did. The novel is written with the stream of consciousness technique and has no chapters and few section breaks. Woolf's sentences are famously long and complex. Sometimes this makes for lyrical, sinuous prose; I especially remembered one passage about the flowers looking like starched laundry striking me as beautiful. It was easier to take in such sentences early in the book, but the prose became more and more numbing because of the its unrelieved density. There are many paragraphs and sentences I reread more than once trying to make sense of them. The narrative often comes across as rambling and incoherent. Given one of the characters is mentally ill, I think some of the narrative is deliberately mad. Different point of views mix throughout the novel without clear cut edges. This is also one of those novels that's feels abstruse, dated, because of many contemporary references are hard to get as a 21st century American without constantly turning to the notes. There's little discernable plot and not one character I found likable--I found Mrs Dalloway herself and almost all the characters vapid and shallow. This isn't an accessible story like those of a Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte or EM Forester--its very interior and page after page is filled with character's thoughts. There is a structure and technique of historic importance, but not a read I'd call enjoyable and filled with the melancholies of middle age. A formative classic for good reason, so I'd give it a shot if you haven't read it--but I finished it frustrated more than moved.

[kaionvin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So it’s thoroughly obvious to say Mrs. Dalloway is modern. But I want to say that I found its execution also freshly contemporary... The concept of people passing in such close concert in common space (as a city or a time), of the fleeting meetings between individuals who otherwise are each an separate island of neuroses and memories of their own—it feels still vibrant and relevant, and if at times also alienating and overly precious, also all the more absorbing when Woolf’s pure volume of stream-of-consciousness bullied me into purely experiencing the characters’ inner monologues rather than attempting to ‘find’ simple definitions for them.On the simple definitions note then, I will say I couldn’t find all the character’s points-of-view equally interesting. To single out an offender, the repeated remembrances of adolescent love (whether of the star-crossed or faux-lesbian or romantic-friendship type) of upper/middle-class Peter and Clarissa felt particularly arbitrary and inconsequential, especially when juxtaposed with the more deeply felt journeys through the eyes of shell-shocked WWI veteran Septimus and that of his young bride Lucretia.

[brianinbuffalo · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I realize this borders on blasphemy, but I found this book tedious and easily forgettable. I was inclined to give it an even lower rating, but I feared there might be some law in Literary Land that bars a "1 star" rating for any work by Virginia Woolf :)

[jveezer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mrs. Dalloway has been sitting on my shelf forever. High up on a shelf usually only accessed when it’s time for an occasional dusting and amongst a bunch of other books written in the first half of the twentieth century that came from the shelves of my grandmother’s library. Down it came as I continued my mission to read more women writers and see if I can reverse the gendered percentage of the books I read annually. Normally, and unconsciously, it’s been 3:1. I found Mrs. Dalloway to be a very accessible example of modernist twentieth century literature. I’m a great lover of Joyce’s work in stream-of-consciousness writing. If Ulysses is used as a meter for progressively more dense and difficult prose, Woolf’s technique in Mrs. Dalloway would fall somewhere in the middle chapters. Like Ulysses, this is a day in the life of its characters. Nothing momentous happens, just life, and a party given by Clarissa Dalloway. While I found the title character to be hard to like in her vapidity, the supporting characters like Peter Walsh, Sally Seton, and Septimus Warren Smith were much more interesting and intriguing. In particular, I was very interested in Woolf’s description of what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this case, it is Warren Smith who is suffering after being in the trenches of WWI. We get a close look at how this affects his marriage and his life after the horror of the war. Additionally, Woolf takes a close look at the various “relationship/marriage” options available at the time. We have Clarissa settling for a reliable, moneyed marriage over the idealistic Peter, who chooses not to marry, and even over an “impossible” homosexual relationship with Sally, who herself also chooses the more conventional route later in life by marrying a businessman. Woolf’s prose is rich and wonderfully descriptive, like this magnificent passage describing Clarissa’s daughter Elizabeth’s ride on an omnibus:“A puff of wind (in spite of the heat, there was quite a wind) blew a thin black veil over the sun and over the Strand. The faces faded; the omnibuses suddenly lost their glow. For although the clouds were of mountainous white so that one could fancy hacking hard chips off with a hatchet, with broad golden slopes, lawns of celestial pleasure gardens, on their flanks, and had all the appearance of settled habitations assembled for the conference of gods above the world, there was a perpetual movement among them. Signs were interchanged, when, as if to fulfil some scheme arranged already, now a summit dwindled, now a whole block of pyramidal size which had kept its station inalterably advanced into the midst or gravely led the procession to fresh anchorage. Fixed though they seemed to their posts, at rest in perfect unanimity, nothing could be fresher, freer, more sensitive superficially than the snow-white or gold-kindled surface; to change, to go, to dismantle the solemn assemblage was immediately possible; and in spite of the grave fixity, the accumulated robustness and solidity, now they struck light to the earth, now darkness.” There are some philosophic gems in here as well. At one point in his novel long musing on life, we get this from Peter: "The compensation of growing old, Peter Walsh thought, coming out of Regent's Park, and holding his hat in hand, was simply this; that the passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained--at last--the power which adds the supreme flavour to existence,--the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round, slowly, in the light."More Virginia Woolf is definitely in my future. Maybe “To the Lighthouse” next.

[melissalenhardt · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Reading Mrs. Dalloway was a bipolar experience. I hated it. I loved it. It confused me. Its brilliant prose brought moments of clarity. It bored me. It riveted me. It challenged my mind. My mind wandered. I wanted to abandon it. I couldn’t stop reading.

Did I like it? Yes and no. Will I ever read it again. Definitely not. Unless I find a version with one page the text and the page opposite an explanation of what is going on, what Woolf is alluding to, and What It All Means. Would I recommend it? No.

And, yes.

[lit_chick_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

2010, Naxos Audiobooks, Read by Juliet StevensonI read Night and Day several months ago, quite enjoyed it, and wanted to follow it with another of Woolf’s novels. I chose Mrs. Dalloway because it is the best known and most widely acclaimed. Juliet Stevenson, narrator of this Naxos Audiobook edition, is fabulous – an exquisite reader.Mrs. Dalloway is the story of a day in June 1923, as lived by Clarissa Dalloway and several other London citizens. The eponymous protagonist is a wealthy, middle-aged socialite who is planning an evening party. Running parallel to Clarissa’s story is the story of Septimus Warren Smith, a shell-shocked veteran of WWI; he is withdrawn, delusional, possibly on the brink of madness. The two stories intersect at the conclusion of the novel. Themes in Mrs. Dalloway include existentialism, madness, loneliness, and fear of death.The entirely of the novel is written in stream of consciousness, which for me is both its strength and its atrophy. Woolf’s prose is beautiful, and I can appreciate her genius in fusing third person omniscient point of view with first person interior monologue; but I do not enjoy this style of writing. Fleeting transitions between characters make the prose difficult to follow, and there are no breaks in the writing, chapter or otherwise. The audiobook consisted of one track of over seven hours. In addition, the novel has no discernible plot; it explores its various themes through the musings and meanderings of characters’ thoughts. And, truthfully, I did not find any of the characters particularly likeable. Septimus Warren Smith promises to be at least relatable, but even he is somehow blank.I much preferred Night and Day to this later novel; the characters were decidedly more likeable and relatable, and the plot of the novel had some structure. I can appreciate Mrs. Dalloway but will not reread. I also do not widely recommend the novel, but I do recommend it to those who read strictly to observe literary form and genre.

[sparkleandchico · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book has no chapters and is basically the stream of consciousness of Mrs Dalloway during one day. It was difficult to read without the natural chapter breaks. The style also didn't suit me--the author just lists random things that the character has seen without explaining why they are relevant or what they relate to. She does this in the middle of other trains of thought which can be confusing. There was nothing offensive about this book, I just didn't get on with it.

[lauralkeet · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The first time I read this book it fell flat. Several years later I read The Hours, which is based on Mrs Dalloway, and thought it was wonderful, which made me think I should re-read the original someday. And this time I appreciated it so much more; in fact, I loved it. From the opening sentence, when Clarissa Dalloway leaves her house to buy flowers for a party she is hosting that evening, I was immediately immersed in the atmosphere of a beautiful London morning. Woolf moves seamlessly from Clarissa to other characters and other places, using events like a passing car to get the reader to “look” in another direction and observe other vignettes in the London scene. This flow continues throughout the novel, as Clarissa prepares for the party and others go about their days. Some characters will attend the party; others have more symbolic dramatic roles. By the end of the party, the characters have all been woven together into a tight and often moving narrative flow.

[marysgirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A tour de force! Although the stories and lives are ordinary, the telling was revolutionary at the time. Woolf weaves the storyline through a number of people as they meet, interact and move on. She's inside the head of one character and passes effortlessly into the next as they shake hands or inhabit the same park. Her insight into the human condition from the wasted life of a society matron to the blasted one of a WWI vet is stunning. Highly recommend this one.

[thewasp_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Mrs Dalloway is wealthy, happy and over 50. Her husband is well connected. The book relates the events of a day in her life, a day where a party is planned. We meet the people whose lives come in contact with hers, directly or indirectly and we learn about them, from them.Virginia Woolfs writing is fluid and you need to pay attention as she moves between characters. The further I read the more I was able to appreciate the art in the book.

[joshrothman · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Obviously one of the greatest novels of the 20th c. If, like me, you haven't read this in a while, it rewards repeated readings as few other short novels do.

[jddunn_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Dense and foreboding. Some of the best and most subtle writing about the social and the melancholic that I've yet seen. A chronicle of the small things we do to build bulwarks against time, death and despair, and of how sometimes they're not enough.

[daptolibrary · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This month we ventured into the classics with Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. We try to include at least two classics a year, believing it enriches our reading experiences, as so many of them are referred to in contemporary novels.As society hostess Clarissa Dalloway prepares for one of her fashionable parties, neighbour Septimus Warren Smith, a World War I veteran, contemplates suicide. Social contrasts and similarities become interwoven in a thought provoking and at times disturbing story.Unlike the Great Gatsby and Wuthering Heights, Dalloway did not score high with our group, but it did produce a lively discussion. One of the best we've had in my opinion!Nancy loved its beautiful prose and clever structure - something we all generally agreed on. This however was not enough for Ann, who found it self-indulgent and just plain boring! She felt she could see how Woolf was compiling the story with clear pointers and was simply out to shock.Denise found it hard going at first but persisted and was awarded with a great book, one she will not forget and would probably not of read outside the book club.Not surprisingly, we found our talk turning towards the social classes of 1920's England and the dos and don'ts of its society. It was mentioned that what was then called 'class structure', (politically incorrect today) is now called 'tradition'. Class distinction has been a common thread in many of our book discussions, which makes one think it is and always will be an endurable theme in popular novels.And of course we eventually found ourselves discussing the film 'The Hours' which is roughly based on Mrs Dalloway, and the book's original title.For those who had seen it, the opinion was of a brilliantly produced film that made one thing absolutely clear - every generation has their own Mrs. Dalloway!

[sparemethecensor · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I find Mrs. Dalloway as a character tragic and I appreciate what the novel is saying about English women, but I think that Lucretia is the one who steals the show. She is so much more interesting and the way she is dealing with culture shock and her husband's PTSD (not that it had a name back then) keeps me reading with rapt attention.

[creativepseudonym · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book gives me mixed feelings. I can appreciate the stream of conscious style, the setting.. but when it comes down to it, the only character I really cared about was Septimus. Clarissa Dalloway, Peter Walsh and all the rest of them were all unsympathetic and dull compared to him, atleast for me.

[erinkennedy-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My favorite of Woolf's novels, with one of the most beautiful endings in literature.

[miriamparker_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've read this book at least five times and every time it is different and shocking and brilliant.

[anderlawlor · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

one of my favorite books ever. i remember i first read it in kevin kopelson's joyce & woolf class at iowa and was very focused on mrs. dalloway's business with sally.

[dawnpen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Breaking like that in the middle of the bedroom. To have a daughter and a husband. And to walk in the morning through the streets like that. With all the time upon you.

[melancholia-2 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

One word : boring.

[jeanphilli · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Found this book very hard to read, very little plot. By the end I valued the writing much much more. Found Septimus, the poor soul suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, fascinating. Especially in how the mentally ill were treated.

[nmhale_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In her inimitable writing style, Woolf created a novel that beautifully captures the complicated interactions between our mental terrain and the external world always pressing on us. The story begins with Mrs. Dalloway planning for her party that evening, and deciding that she needs to buy the flowers herself. As she walks to the shop, her observations of her surroundings trigger memories and emotions, thoughts that jump from past to present to future in no chronological order, and images that are vague and associative or concrete and embodied stories. Woolf has such mastery in the way she captures a mind. The subconscious and the conscious twining together, the way our thoughts can hop from coherent and functional concentration to light reverie in seconds. How our mind can travel down a chain of thoughts, whilst we are almost unaware of the process, and arrive at a new topic that seems completely unrelated, but actually had a logical progression. I am not actually straying from a plot synopsis, because the majority of the book actually takes place within these interior dimensions. As Mrs. Dalloway prepares for her evening party, we frequently see her thoughts, rather than action or dialogue. Just as the mind nimbly sweeps from one idea to the next, so does the omniscient narrator skillfully move from perspective to perspective. While Clarissa is preparing her party, starting with the flowers and returning home to mend her dress for the night, her old lover Peter Walsh is just returning to England. One of his first stops is at Clarissa's house; he surprises her while she is in the middle of her sewing, and while she clutches her scissors, and he plays with his pocket knife, they have a friendly conversation that contains much more depth in the memories and undercurrents than in what is actually said. (I read a review that pointed out the importance of being armed in this book, having weapons, as this scene eloquently illustrates.) During this interlude, the narrative moves smoothly from Clarissa's mind to Peter's and back again, but eventually leaves when Peter does, and follows him as he walks from Clarissa's house to his hotel. Again, the reader enjoys a long sequence where the outside world is just a vehicle to evoke the more interesting inner thoughts and permutations. Actually, the correlation of physically walking through London and mentally wandering through memories is a trope in the story; we follow Clarissa, Peter, Septimus and Rezia - even Richard and Elizabeth Dalloway for short periods of time - and these journeys occupy the majority of the book. While the characters roam, the reader is invited to occupy their most private mental musings.A narrative with so little action, and so much introspection, may sound like a dull read, but it absolutely is not. I have never read an author who was able to portray in words, in a story, the inexplicable workings of our minds; no, our souls. Woolf's language is gorgeous; the imagery is powerful, moving, strong. She creates extended metaphors that make my writer's heart quiver with delighted admiration. Her grasp of beautiful language rivets the attention. Most writers need action to drive the story forward, but in this case, the fascination is focused inward, and is so compelling that only a minimal plot is needed to contain the characterization that takes place on a grand scale. We learn so much more about the people in this story than in novels of comparable length. They feel like real people, This is a complicated novel.

[bastet_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the seminal books for women's fiction (no irony intended). Worth every word.

[jvioland_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Oh, spare me. Not another English story of a pitiful high-society lady and her angst. Very dated but well written.

[rizeandshine · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

If you are a poet, a lover of words or perhaps have an interest in psychology, then Mrs. Dalloway may be the book for you. Virginia Woolf's use of language is beautiful and she chooses each word carefully. However, this story did not have enough plot to sustain my interest. I don't normally require a lot of action in my reading and I love a character-driven story. I also don't mind the stream of consciousness style of writing that Woolf employs, as I like being able to get into the mind of a character. It just seems that there is something lacking or maybe just something that I am missing from Woolf's stories in general. The two major plot points did intersect at the end, but I don't quite understand their significance. I do believe that Virginia Woolf's writing was quite autobiographical and explored many of her own thoughts and feelings. Knowing a bit about the author's personal life and looking at the book from this perspective, I could gain a whole new level of understanding. Overall the book is a poetic glimpse into the human psyche.

[bookworm_naida · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

First off, I need to start by saying that my review could not possibly do justice to Mrs Dalloway. This was both a complex and beautiful novel. I've been meaning to read Virginia Woolf for quite a while now since I am particular to the classics. I didn't know what to expect when I picked up this book, but what I found here was a poetic and lyrical read. The book is told by an invisible narrator and as you read you get a glimpse into the thoughts of the characters within the story. It is a story about old regrets and old dreams. There are no chapter breaks and the book is a series of free flowing thoughts from one character to the next.The writing is disjointed, and though it was a short book, it's not one that can be read quickly. In Mrs Dalloway, we get a glimpse into a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a middle-aged society woman, as she plans a party. The book takes place in June during post-World War I England. As Clarissa prepares for her party that will take place that night, she has flashbacks and memories of her past. She remembers her love affair with a woman named Sally. Her ex-beau Peter Walsh stops in for a visit and tells Clarissa he is in love with a married woman. She finds herself sad at this confession and wonders what would have been if she had married Peter herself. Peter is actually still in love with Clarissa and has many regrets about losing her.Another character in the story is Septimus Warren Smith, who is a severely depressed veteran and is contemplating suicide. Although Clarissa never meets him, he is a main character in the book and his depression is taking over his life. I did feel bad for Septimus and Woolf does an excellent job at getting the reader into his head, to really see what his illness makes him feel like. His thoughts are frightening and sad. I found him the most touching character in the story, I felt bad for Septimus. I think sadly enough, Woolf may have written a manic depressive so well, since she suffered from mental illness and ultimately committed suicide herself. The story all comes together in the end at Clarissa's party, where friends from her past and as well as her present are gathered at her home.I have to mention, the final lines in this book are among my favorite of any book I've read. Like I said, I really enjoyed Woolf's style of writing. I think Mrs Dalloway is a book to be read slowly and to be savored. I bought this book at a library sale for about 25cents. Don't you love when you find gems like that?