Mr & Mrs Ramsay & their eight children have always holidayed at their summer house in Skye surrounded by family friends The novel's opening section teems with the noise complications bruised emotions joys & quiet tragedies of everyday family life that might go on forever But time passes bringing with it war & death & the summer home stands empty until one day many years later when the family return to make the long-postponed visit to the lighthouse One of the great literary achievements of the twentieth century To the Lighthouse is at once an intensely autobiographical & universally moving masterpiece