The Common Reader - Virginia Woolf

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Résumé :
2021 Reprint of the 1925 Edition. The Common Reader, a collection of essays by Virginia Woolf, was published in two series, the first in 1925 and the second in 1932. This edition reprints the first series, first published in 1925. Most of the essays appeared originally in such publications as the Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, New Statesman, Life and Letters, Dial, Vogue, and The Yale Review. The title indicates Woolf's intention that her essays be read by the common reader who reads books for personal enjoyment. Using the sympathetic persona of the common reader, Woolf treats literary topics. Woolf outlines her literary philosophy in the introductory essay to the first series, The Common Reader, and in the concluding essay to the second series, How Should One Read a Book? The first series includes essays on Geoffrey Chaucer, Michel de Montaigne, Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Joseph Conrad, as well as discussions of the Greek language and the modern essay. Content: 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 -- Defoe -- Addison -- The lives of the obscure: The Taylors and the Edgeworths. Laetitia Pilkington. Miss Ormerod -- Jane Austen -- Modern fiction -- Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights -- George Eliot -- The Russian point of view -- Outlines: Miss Mitford. Dr. Bentley. Lady Dorothy Nevill. Archbishop Thomson -- The patron and the crocus -- The modern essay -- Joseph Conrad -- How it strikes a contemporary....

Biographie:
Adeline Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941) was an English writer who is considered one of the most important modernist twentieth century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. She was born in an affluent household in South Kensington, London, attended the Ladies' Department of King's College and was acquainted with the early reformers of women's higher education. Having been home-schooled for the most part of her childhood, mostly in English classics and Victorian literature, Woolf began writing professionally in 1900. During the interwar period, Woolf was an important part of London's literary society as well as a central figure in the group of intellectuals known as the Bloomsbury Group. She published her first novel titled The Voyage Out in 1915, through her half-brother's publishing house, Gerald Duckworth and Company. Her best-known works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928). She is also known for her essay A Room of One's Own (1929), where she wrote the much-quoted dictum, A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. Woolf became one of the central subjects of the 1970s movement of feminist criticism and her works have since garnered much attention and widespread commentary for inspiring feminism, an aspect of her writing that was unheralded earlier. Her works are widely read all over the world and have been translated into more than fifty languages. She suffered from severe bouts of mental illness throughout her life and took her own life by drowning in 1941 at the age of 59.

Sommaire:
2021 Reprint of the 1925 Edition. The Common Reader, a collection of essays by Virginia Woolf, was published in two series, the first in 1925 and the second in 1932. This edition reprints the first series, first published in 1925. Most of the essays appeared originally in such publications as the Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, New Statesman, Life and Letters, Dial, Vogue, and The Yale Review. The title indicates Woolf's intention that her essays be read by the common reader who reads books for personal enjoyment. Using the sympathetic persona of the common reader, Woolf treats literary topics. Woolf outlines her literary philosophy in the introductory essay to the first series, The Common Reader, and in the concluding essay to the second series, How Should One Read a Book? The first series includes essays on Geoffrey Chaucer, Michel de Montaigne, Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Joseph Conrad, as well as discussions of the Greek language and the modern essay. Content: 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 -- Defoe -- Addison -- The lives of the obscure: The Taylors and the Edgeworths. Laetitia Pilkington. Miss Ormerod -- Jane Austen -- Modern fiction -- Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights -- George Eliot -- The Russian point of view -- Outlines: Miss Mitford. Dr. Bentley. Lady Dorothy Nevill. Archbishop Thomson -- The patron and the crocus -- The modern essay -- Joseph Conrad -- How it strikes a contemporary....