Virginia Woolf And The Common Wealth Reader

Edited collection from acclaimed contemporary Woolf scholars, addressing the theme of Virginia Woolf and the Commonwealth reader.

“The Common Reader” is a collection of classic essays by Virginia Woolf, published initially in two parts in 1925 and 1935. As the title suggests, the essays are intended for the average reader and deal with a variety of literary topics presented in layman's terms. The first series deals with various authors including Geoffrey Chaucer, Jane Austen, and Joseph Conrad; together with pieces on the Greek language and the modern essay. In the second series, Woolf looks at the lives and works of such authors as Daniel Defoe, Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Hardy, and others. A fantastic collection of essays not to be missed by fans of Woolf's seminal work and literature lovers in general. Contents include: “The Common Reader”, “The Pastons and Chaucer”, “On not Knowing Greek”, “The Elizabethan Lumber Room”, “Notes on an Elizabethan Play”, “Montaigne”, “The Duchess of Newcastle”, “Rambling Round Evelyn”, etc. Adeline Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) was an English writer. She is widely hailed as being among the most influential modernist authors of the 20th century and a pioneer of stream of consciousness narration. She suffered numerous nervous breakdowns during her life, primarily as a result of the deaths of family members, and it is now believed that she may have had bipolar disorder. In 1941, Woolf drowned herself in the River Ouse at Lewes, aged 59. Other notable works by this author include: “Pattledom” (1925), “A Room of One's Own” (1929), “The Captain's Death Bed: and Other Essays” (1950). Read & Co. Great Essays is proudly republishing this classic collection now in a new edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.

The Common Reader' is a collection of essays by Virginia Woolf, published in two series, the first in 1925 and the second in 1932. The second series features essays on John Donne, Daniel Defoe, Dorothy Osborne, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Thomas Hardy, among others. CONTENTS: THE STRANGE ELIZABETHANS DONNE AFTER THREE CENTURIES "THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE'S ARCADIA" "ROBINSON CRUSOE" DOROTHY OSBORNE'S "LETTERS" SWIFT'S "JOURNAL TO STELLA" THE "SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY" LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS TO HIS SON TWO PARSONS: JAMES WOODFORDE; JOHN SKINNER DR. BURNEY'S EVENING PARTY JACK MYTTON DE QUINCEY'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY FOUR FIGURES: COWPER AND LADY AUSTEN; BEAU BRUMMELL; MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT; DOROTHY WORDSWORTH WILLIAM HAZLITT GERALDINE AND JANE "AURORA LEIGH" THE NIECE OF AN EARL GEORGE GISSING THE NOVELS OF GEORGE MEREDITH "I AM CHRISTINA ROSSETTI" THE NOVELS OF THOMAS HARDY HOW SHOULD ONE READ A BOOK? Adeline Virginia Woolf (25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941) was an English writer, and one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century. During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a central figure in the influential Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals.

This collection addresses such themes as the creation of worlds through literary writing, Woolf's reception as a world writer, world wars and the centenary of the First World War, and natural worlds in Woolf's writings. The selected papers represent the major themes of the conference as well as a diverse range of contributors from around the world and from different positions in and outside the university. The contents include familiar voices from past conferences--e.g., Judith Allen, Eleanor McNees, Elisa Kay Sparks--and well-known scholars who have contributed less frequently, if at all, to past Selected Papers--e.g., Susan Stanford Friedman, Steven Putzel, Michael Tratner--as well as new voices of younger scholars, students, and independent scholars. The volume is divided into four themed sections. The first and longest section, War and Peace, is framed by Mark Hussey's keynote roundtable, War and Violence, and Maud Ellmann's keynote address, Death in the Air: Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Townsend Warner in World War II. The second section, World Writer(s), includes papers that read the Woolfs in a global context. The papers in Animal and Natural Worlds bring recent developments in ecocriticism and post-humanist studies to analysis of Woolf's writing of human and nonhuman worlds. Finally, Writing and Worldmaking addresses various aspects of genre, style, and composition. Madelyn Detloff's closing essay, The Precarity of 'Civilization' in Woolfs Creative Worldmaking, brings us back to international and cultural conflicts in our own day, reminding us, as Detloff says, why Woolf still matters today.

'He reads for his own pleasure rather than to impart knowledge or correct the opinions of others'. So Virginia Woolf described the 'common reader' for whom she wrote her second series of essays. Here she turns her brilliant eye on novels and poetry from John Donne to Christina Rossetti and Mary Wollstonecraft as well as many others. This is an informal, informative and witty celebration of our literary and social heritage by a writer of genius.

This carefully crafted ebook: "The Common Reader - Second Series (1935)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. The Common Reader' is a collection of essays by Virginia Woolf, published in two series, the first in 1925 and the second in 1932. The second series features essays on John Donne, Daniel Defoe, Dorothy Osborne, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Thomas Hardy, among others. CONTENTS: THE STRANGE ELIZABETHANS DONNE AFTER THREE CENTURIES "THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE'S ARCADIA" "ROBINSON CRUSOE" DOROTHY OSBORNE'S "LETTERS" SWIFT'S "JOURNAL TO STELLA" THE "SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY" LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS TO HIS SON TWO PARSONS-- I. JAMES WOODFORDE II. JOHN SKINNER DR. BURNEY'S EVENING PARTY JACK MYTTON DE QUINCEY'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY FOUR FIGURES-- I. COWPER AND LADY AUSTEN II. BEAU BRUMMELL III. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT IV. DOROTHY WORDSWORTH WILLIAM HAZLITT GERALDINE AND JANE "AURORA LEIGH" THE NIECE OF AN EARL GEORGE GISSING THE NOVELS OF GEORGE MEREDITH "I AM CHRISTINA ROSSETTI" THE NOVELS OF THOMAS HARDY HOW SHOULD ONE READ A BOOK?

A collection of essays from the acclaimed author of Mrs. Dalloway on such subjects as Jane Austen, Geoffrey Chaucer, and her own literary philosophy. A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in not out. Not written for scholars or critics, these essays are a collection of Virginia Woolf’s everyday thoughts about literature and the world—and the art of reading for pleasure. That many of them previously appeared in such publications as the Nation, Vogue, and the Yale Review points to their widespread appeal. Still, her brilliant powers of observation and insatiable curiosity shine through . . . “After all, Mrs. Woolf is no common reader, try as she may to be one. Her powers of coordination and logical inference are altogether too strong and capable. No common reader would kick the over-praised Robinson Crusoe overboard to float in seas of adolescent adoration for Moll Flanders, as she does. It would take an uncommon common reader to discourse as pithily on Elizabethan drama or the furiously literary Duchess of Newcastle. No idle peruser of the printed page would meditate so beautifully on Greek letters. And when we come to those essays, ‘Modern Fiction’ and ‘How It Strikes a Contemporary,’ a note that is altogether professional and the result of intensive study and theorizing is to be discerned.” —The New York Times “Woolf’s provocative collection of essays, reviews and flights of literary imagination assesses both the famous and the obscure.” —The Times (London)