Orlando

Product Description

Once described as the 'longest & most charming love-letter in literature' the Virginia Woolf's Orlando" is edited by Brenda Lyons with an introduction & notes by Sandra M. Gilbert in " Penguin Classics". Written for Virginia Woolf's intimate friend the charismatic writer Vita Sackville-West " Orlando" is a playful mock 'biography' of a chameleonic historical figure immortal & ageless who changes sex & identity on a whim. First masculine then feminine Orlando begins life as a young sixteenth-century nobleman then gallops through three centuries to end up as a woman writer in Virginia Woolf's own time. A wry commentary on gender roles & modes of history " Orlando" is also in Woolf's own words a light-hearted 'writer's holiday' which delights in ambiguity & capriciousness. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is regarded as a major 20th century author & essayist a key figure in literary history as a feminist & modernist & the centre of ' The Bloomsbury Group'. This informal collective of artists & writers which included Lytton Strachey & Roger Fry exerted a powerful influence over early twentieth-century British culture. Between 1925 & 1931 Virginia Woolf produced what are now regarded as her finest masterpieces from " Mrs Dalloway" (1925) to the poetic & highly experimental novel " The Waves" (1931). She also maintained an astonishing output of literary criticism short fiction journalism & biography including the playfully subversive " Orlando" (1928) & "A Room of One's Own" (1929) a passionate feminist essay. If you enjoyed " Orlando" you might like Woolf's " The Waves" also available in " Penguin Modern Classics". "I read this book & believed it was a hallucinogenic interactive biography of my own life & future". (Tilda Swinton)."