To the Lighthouse (Annotated) - Couverture souple

Among the many interesting passages that Woolf revised or deleted on the proofs is a long and previously unpublished account, cast as a memory of his son James, of Mr. Ramsay Lecturing in London while his children sit dutifully in the Audience. Virginia Woolf′s corrected typescript of part two, ′Time Passes′, prepared b Woolf for Charles Mauron, whose translation ′Le Temps Passe′ appeared in the French periodical Commerce in 1926, is also included.

In the introduction the editor discusses the genesis of To the Lighthouse, its autobiographical and biographical elements, and the history of its critical reception.

First published in 1927, To the Lighthouse is Virginia Woolf′s fifth novel and the one in which she became, as she said, ′mistress of her medium′. A story of family life, it is based on vivid memories of her childhood. Although she set the story on the Isle of Skye in the Hebrides, the house and landscape she was writing about were Talland House in St Ives, Cornwall, where her family spend their summers until her mother′s death in 1895, when Virginia Woolf was thirteen. Woolf′s father, Sir Leslie Stephen – philosopher, critic, and editor – served as a model for Mr Ramsay, While Mrs Ramsay was drawn from Woolf′s memories of her mother, Julia Stephen, an intelligent and beautiful woman long remembered in St Ives for her good works there. The complex fusion of autobiography, biography, and fiction resulted in a work which has become a classic of modern literature.

ORANGE INHERITANCE READS ARE PUBLISHED IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE ORANGE PRIZE FOR FICTION

Books shape our lives and transform the way we see ourselves and each other. The best books are timeless and continue to be relevant generation after generation. Vintage Classics asked the winners of The Orange Prize for Fiction which books they would pass onto the next generation and why. Helen Dunmore chose To the Lighthouse.

The serene and maternal Mrs Ramsay, the tragic yet absurd Mr Ramsay, together with their children and assorted guests, are holidaying on the Isle of Skye. From the seemingly trivial postponement of a visit to a nearby lighthouse Virginia Woolf constructs a remarkable and moving examination of the complex tensions and allegiances of family life, and the conflict between male and female principles.

'One of the finest novels in the English language' Helen Dunmore

See also: Eugénie Grandet