Mrs Dalloway

Virginia Woolf's masterwork Mrs Dalloway was at the vanguard of experimental, modernist novel-writing, and remains one of the supreme examples today. As Clarissa Dalloway prepares for a party in the evening, seemingly trivial incidents prompt her to undertake a searching reconnaissance into her memory, where she dwells on missed opportunities and aborted relationships. Set during the course of 24 hours, the novel draws subtle parallels between Clarissa, a polished high-society lady, and the shell-shocked war veteran, Septimus Smith; both are similarly transfixed by their pasts. Woolf's trademark, stream of consciousness prose masterfully captures the complex architecture of the inner life and the mind-set of inter-war society. This beautifully articulated novel is read by Juliet Stevenson whose reading of To the Lighthouse has become a Naxos AudioBooks bestseller.