To the Lighthouse
Virginia Woolf, 1927
WOOLF, Virginia (1882-1941). To the Lighthouse. London: the Hogarth Press, 1927.

First edition in dust jacket. The most autobiographical of Woolf’s novels, it centers on a Hebridean holiday house occupied by a large family and their guests. The narrative of To the Lighthouse is split into three sections, the first and last focussing on two single days occuring ten years apart. The shorter middle section, “Time Passes” is an extraordinary experiment in storytelling, described by Woolf as: “the most difficult abstract piece of writing – I have to give an empty house, no people’s characters, the passage of time, all eyeless and featureless with nothing to cling to” (Diary, 30 April 1926). Woolf regarded this work as “easily the best of my books” – her husband Leonard called it a “masterpiece.” Connolly, The Modern Movement 54; Kirkpatrick A10a.

Octavo. (Some spotting at ends.) Original cloth (spots to paper edges, endpapers toned); pictorial dust jacket designed by Vanessa Bell (mild soiling and toning, minor edge-wear); custom half morocco box.