Mrs. Dalloway

288 pages, paperback. Elegantly interweaving her characters' complex inner lives in an unbroken stream of consciousness, Virginia Woolf´s "Mrs Dalloway" continues to enthral readers with its exploration of the human experience; of time, space, madness and regret. This "Penguin Classics" edition is edited by Stella McNichol with an introduction and notes by Elaine Showalter. Past, present and future are brought together one momentous June day in 1923. Clarissa Dalloway, elegant and vivacious, is preparing for a party while reminiscing about her childhood romance with Peter Walsh, and dwelling on her daughter Elizabeth's rapidly-approaching adulthood. In another part of London, war veteran Septimus Smith is shell-shocked and on the brink of madness, slowly spiralling towards self-annihilation. Their experiences mingling, yet never quite meeting, Virginia Woolf masterfully portrays a serendipitous unity of inner lives, converging as the party reaches its glittering climax.