Woolf, Virginia

Mrs. Dalloway, with To The Lighthouse, tops the list of Woolf’s most popular and readable examples of her stream-of-consciousness style, which evolved with the composition of each novel. She follows Clarissa Dalloway, the sexually and intellectually staid wife to a British MP, around London on a day mid-June 1923 as she arranges the final details of her party that evening, and is privy to her thoughts and memories. As Clarissa thinks of or passes by Woolf’s other characters, the narration jumps from her head to theirs, as they probe their own pasts and plans. The strong counterpoint to Clarissa’s rhythm is provided by Septimus Smith, a severely depressed shell-shock victim on the verge of committing suicide despite (or, the implication is, perhaps because of) the myopic ministrations of the self-absorbed psychiatrist and Dalloway party guest Sir William Bradshaw, an amalgam of the several abusive or incompetent psychiatric specialists Woolf herself had encountered when trying to allay her mental unrest.

Without question, with Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf turned the corner to face wide permanent public recognition.