The Inner Life of Mrs. Dalloway
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Columbia University Press
Publishing:2nd Sep '25
£20.00
This title is due to be published on 2nd September, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Mrs. Dalloway is a novel about almost everything. The story of a single day in London after the First World War, it travels backward and forward in time and consciousness, venturing beyond the ordinary world into epic, mythic, and mystical modes. The novel is a work of extraordinary richness, as much for its interwoven webs of meaning as for its moral and psychological vision.
Edward Mendelson explores the novel’s deepest questions, focusing on the core themes of medicine, empire, and love. He traces how Virginia Woolf thought and wrote, considering the complexities and resonances of her works. Mendelson casts Mrs. Dalloway as an extended protest against authorities that wield power over others and a defense of the equality of inner lives. He also examines the place of the book in literary history going back to Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare as well as its influence on later writers from Erich Auerbach through Zadie Smith. Both incisive and passionate, this book is at once a wide-ranging critical study of Virginia Woolf’s writing and a love letter to a great novel.
In Edward Mendelson, Virginia Woolf has found a profoundly generous and intelligent reader, one who considers Mrs. Dalloway in its full complexity. Elegant and eloquent—this book is excellent company. -- Anne Fernald, editor of The Oxford Handbook of Virginia Woolf
In Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf set out to "dig out beautiful caves behind [her] characters." Edward Mendelson's triumph of scholarship shines a light into the beautiful caves behind Woolf herself and the fascinating, complex characters, major and minor, who populate her novel: to read this masterpiece through his eyes is to appreciate anew its myriad connections, its moral vision, its humanity, and its enduring pleasure. Mrs. Dalloway offers a transformative reading experience, and Mendelson is the ideal companion to guide us, with deft erudition, through Clarissa's day. -- Francesca Wade, author of Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars
Thanks to Edward Mendelson, I’ve lived Mrs. Dalloway all over again, and seen and felt the novel anew. Rare for literary criticism to act like a revelation, but The Inner Life of Mrs. Dalloway does just that, showing how Virginia Woolf creates dramas of intimacy and epiphany in the larger contexts of empire, and medical and emotional coercion. A work of admirable acuity and ethical force. -- Rosanna Warren, author of So Forth and Max Jacob: A Life in Art and Letters
ISBN: 9780231221719
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
152 pages