Woolf’s last novel, published after her death. Like ‘Mrs Dalloway’ the novel centres around a social event. ‘Despite the inherent comedy that its setting and action allows – the book describes a pageant staged in the grounds of a country house – it evokes and encompasses, as Woolf herself hoped it would, “all life, all art, all waifs, all strays”. Its ambition and execution – complete with moments of fragmentation, passages of prose poetry and darting movements from one character’s consciousness to another – are strikingly original, daring and yet assured. ‘ BBC
