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.