Showing results by author "Virginia" in All Categories

An extended essay initially written in response to a letter pondering how to end war, Three Guineas eloquently relates women’s equal opportunity to the end of the power structures which contribute to conflict. Using the metaphor of three guineas, Woolf highlights three worthy causes to donate to in order to end violence: rebuilding education for women, supporting professional opportunities for women and the promotion of pacifism.

This feminist essay argues for both a literal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy. First published on 24 October 1929, the extended essay was based on a series of lectures delivered by Virginia Woolf at Cambridge University in October 1928. While it employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers of and characters in fiction, the manuscript for the delivery of the series of lectures, titled “Women and Fiction”, and hence the essay, are non-fiction. - Summary by Cori Samuel This recording was originally ...

The Thirty Years' War continues to ravage seventeenth-century Europe, but a new force is gathering power and influence: the Confederated Principalities of Europe, an alliance between Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, and the West Virginians from the twentieth century, led by Mike Stearns, who were hurled centuries into the past by a mysterious cosmic accident.

This is Virginia Woolf’s first collection of essays, published in 1925. In them, she attempts to see literature from the point of view of the ‘common reader’ - someone whom she, with Dr Johnson, distinguished from the critic and the scholar. She read, and wrote, as an outsider: a woman set to school in her father’s library, denied the educational privileges of her male siblings - and with no fixed view of what constitutes ‘English literature’. What she produced is an eccentric and unofficial literary and social history from the 14th to the 20th centuries. 

Too young to be whisked away by a Stannah Stairlift or to enjoy the luxury of a walk-in-bath, Marie Sharp is horrified when a friend suggests she join a bookclub as she turns 60. Bookclub people feel they must poke their brain with a pointed stick to keep it working - they're as bad as oldies who cycle across Mongolia in their 80s or paraglide in their 90s. As far as Marie is concerned, they're tragic failures who haven't come to terms with ageing.

In this hilarious second installment of a Regency romance series, a single lord is forced to settle down...and when a houseparty brings a happy-go-lucky lady's companion his way, his grumpy heart is unexpectedly warmed. Nine years ago, Lord Guy Harrowby, Viscount Wennington, was publicly...

The Waves: Terence Davies's dramatisation of Virginia Woolf's story. Episode 1: Louis, Bernard, Neville, Jinny, Susan and Rhoda recall their childhood and first steps into adulthood.Episode 2: Louis, Bernard, Neville, Jinny, Susan and Rhoda struggle to come to terms with life after Percival...

The Waves traces the lives of six friends from childhood to old age. It was written when Virginia Woolf was at the height of her experimental literary powers, and she allows each character to tell their own story, through powerful, poetic monologues. By listening to these voices struggling to impose order and meaning on their lives we are drawn into a literary journey which stunningly reproduces the complex, confusing and contradictory nature of human experience.

Step into the intricate world of societal expectations and personal introspection, where the nuances of everyday life reveal deeper truths about identity and time. This podcast brings to light the complexities of social roles, personal freedom, and the inner thoughts that shape our experiences. Each week, a different full-length audiobook takes center stage, offering a diverse array of perspectives, time periods, and narrative styles. These stories are not part of a continuous tale but rather a curated collection that encourages listeners to explore the multifaceted nature of human existence. ...

A grey dawn in 1943: On a street in Rome, two young women, complete strangers to each other, lock eyes for a single moment. One of the women, Chiara Ravello, is about to flee the occupied city for the safety of her grandparents' house in the hills. The other has been herded onto a truck with her husband and their young children and will shortly be driven off into the darkness. In that endless-seeming moment, before she has time to think about what she is doing, Chiara makes a decision that changes her life for ever.

On the glistening surface of Virginia Woolf’s groundbreaking novel is the Ramsay family, a seemingly stable group of characters, but a group that is ultimately subject to the same alterations and losses that come with the passing of time. Set at the Ramsays’ summerhouse over two September days, ten years apart, Woolf’s influential landmark of twentieth-century literature explores the hopes, frustrations, and small moments of grace and change that permeate everyday life.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." These were the words that defined Fitzwilliam Darcy's young life. Any measure of integrity, honor, loyalty—these were secondary considerations to the size of a bachelor's estate. The only lady to esteem his genuine character was now lost forever, and he must face his future alone.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Keep Smiling Through by Dame Vera Lynn, read by Anne Dover and David Thorpe. In the year of her 100th birthday, Dame Vera Lynn's fascinating and life-affirming wartime memoir from the forces' sweetheart's of her adventures entertaining the troops in...

FALLING FOR THE AMISH RIVAL On the farm, they’re enemies… On paper, they’re falling in love. Amanda Stoltzfus would love to get married, but most Amish men aren’t interested in a woman who prefers farmwork to housework. Good thing her secret pen pal L.D. values her for who she is, unlike...

Jacob's Room was the first of Virginia Woolf's novels to be published by the Hogarth Press, founded with her husband, Leonard Woolf, in their home at Hogarth House in Richmond in 1917. It is an episodic tale that attempts to evoke the inner life of Jacob Flanders and his social milieu during the first decade-and-a-half of the 20th century.

Diana Merriwell and Giles Sinclair only tolerate one another for the sake of their nearest and dearest. Everyone believes that they are meant to be together, but Diana and Giles know that it is animosity, not attraction, that fuels their barbed exchanges. Anyway, Diana loves her freedom too much to give it up for marriage, and Giles is happily wedded to his bachelor lifestyle. After Giles' curmudgeonly father, the Duke of Harpenden, unexpectedly turns up his toes, it's only a matter of time before the circumstances of his only son's birth are revealed. 

Between the Acts is Virginia Woolf’s final novel, set in a quiet English village just before World War II. The story unfolds over the course of one day, as villagers prepare for and perform an outdoor pageant that reflects the history of England. Beneath the surface of this seemingly simple event, tensions rise—between family members, within relationships, and in the looming shadow of war.

A beautifully curated collection of profoundly intimate and boundary-pushing writing, The Selected Short Stories of Virginia Woolf showcase some of the literary icon's work at its very best. Both lyrical and impressionistic in style, Woolf's short stories offer a candid insight into her characters' inner lives – their memories, thoughts and desires – cultivating a rich emotional framework from which her different protagonists evolve.

Five stories from influential women writers of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century. New Zealand-born Katherine Mansfield settled in England where she wrote a series of short stories that are widely recognized as among the finest of the 20th century for their economy, clarity, sensitivity and effect. "The Garden Party" is one of her most famous, while "Daughters of the Late Colonel" shows a wonderful sense of wit.

FOREWORD BY ALI SMITH WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY FRANCESCA WADE Who better to serve as a guide to great books and their authors than Virginia Woolf? In the early years of its existence, the Times Literary Supplement published some of the finest writers in English: T. S. Eliot, Henry James and E. M...