The Common Reader: First Series, Annotated Edition

Book Description

Woolf’s first and most popular volume of essays. This collection has more than twenty-five selections, including such important statements as “Modern Fiction” and “The Modern Essay.” Edited and with an Introduction by Andrew McNeillie; Index.

Customer Reviews:

A Must Read Gem.......2007-08-04

As background information, I read most of her work starting with her first novel "The Voyage Out" published in 1915, skipped her second novel - which is considered to be a flop, Night and Day from 1919 - and then read "Jacob's Room," her third, then went on and read "Mrs. Dalloway," her fourth, and next read "To The Lighthouse," etc. Also, I read much of Woolf's non-fiction and set up a Listmania list on amazon.com.

We are the "common readers," as Woolf describes us, we readers of her books. The present book is an informal summary of all literature from the Greeks to Joyce. It is not complete but it is bits and pieces that Woolf thinks are interesting. This is a medium length book about 200 pages long and available free on line at the Gutenberg project. I think her best fiction is "To The Lighthouse" - that is a masterpiece - and her best non-fiction is "A Room of One's Own." I like the Oxford version of the latter published along with "Three Guineas." Also, the present book is almost on par with "A Room of One's Own."

I got interested in Dostoevsky, and read most of his work, so I was interested to read what Woolf might say about him. These two comments from Woolf on Dostoevsky show you what you can expect from the "Common Reader." The two quotes below are from the section on Russian literature.

Comment #1: Her question: it was written in Russian, and is the sense lost in the translation to English?

"Doubtful as we frequently are whether either the French or the Americans, who have so much in common with us, can yet understand English literature, we must admit graver doubts whether, for all their enthusiasm, the English can understand Russian literature. Debate might protract itself indefinitely as to what we mean by "understand"."

Comment #2: Dostoevsky focuses on the Russian soul.

"Indeed, it is the soul that is the chief character in Russian fiction. Delicate and subtle in Chekov, subject to an infinite number of humours and distempers, it is of greater depth and volume in Dostoevsky; it is liable to violent diseases and raging fevers, but still the predominant concern. Perhaps that is why it needs so great an effort on the part of an English reader to read The Brothers Karamazov or The Possessed a second time. The "soul" is alien to him. It is even antipathetic. It has little sense of humour and no sense of comedy. It is formless. It has slight connection with the intellect. It is confused, diffuse, tumultuous, incapable, it seems, of submitting to the control of logic or the discipline of poetry. The novels of Dostoevsky are seething whirlpools, gyrating sandstorms, waterspouts which hiss and boil and suck us in. They are composed purely and wholly of the stuff of the soul. Against our wills we are drawn in, whirled round, blinded, suffocated, and at the same time filled with a giddy rapture."

The "Common Reader" is only glimpses and fragments of literature but it has many interesting sections.

An uncommon writer and the common reader.......2007-04-20

In the opening essay in this book Woolf tells us she is writing for the common reader. The common reader is not the critic and not the scholar."He is worse educated, and nature has not gifted him so generously. He reads for his own pleasure rather than to impart knowledge or correct the opinions of others. Above all, he is guided by an instinct to create for himself, out of whatever odds and ends he can come by, some kind of whole- a portrait of a man, a sketch of an age, a theory of the art of writing."
Woolf then goes on in the subsequent essays to write of Chaucer, Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad, Montaigne, George Eliot, Defoe, Addison, 'Modern Fiction' 'The Lives of the Obscure' ' Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights' 'The Russian Point of View'.
She writes with a special kind of insight and artfulness. I especially liked her essay on Montaigne who she sees as one of the few writers who truly makes a portrait of himself, and writes truly of the whole of his experience. She sees him as one who knew not only how to communicate himself but to be himself, who defied convention and ceremony, and prizing contemplation and retirement made a book which was himself.
It can be said that Woolf in a way does the same with these reflections upon others which hold up a mirror to her own masterfully insightful sensibility.

Uncommonly Good Read.......2000-07-15

You start out wanting to like this author. She has a witty, humorous way with words, a reverence for the written word and a telling grasp of what distinguishes writers of various eras. Of Elizabethan dramatists, she writes, "Theirs is the word coining genius, as if thought plunged into a sea of words and came up dripping." She writes about Classical Greek damatists as one who understands what separates them from all writers who follow: "To understand him," she says of Aeschylus, "is is necessary to take that dangerous leap through the air without the support of words ... for words, when opposed to such a blast of meaning, must give out, must be blown astray..." For her, the best writing, whether that of a Greek or an Englishman, has a meaning that defies words, a meaning that we percieve in the mind -- without words. Coming down the centuries and pausing to consider Jane Austen, she captures the essential writer in terms that encourage and enlarge: "Think away the surface animation, the likeness to life, and there remains, to provide a deeper pleasure, an exquisite discriminaiton of human values." Along with her interest in the well known (she treats many more than the few mentioned here)she has a teasing regard for near greats and nobodies, whose seldom touched books rest in near oblivion. Of the memoirs of one, Laetitia Pilkington, she writes: "... the dust lies heavy on her tomb ... nobody has read her since early in the last century when a reader ... left off in the middle and marked her place with a faded list of goods and groceries." Nor is it just to have a chuckle that she looks at such relative unknowns, but to give us a look at their pained and frequently bereft lives. Laetitia Pilkington was badly used by men in her life. Woolf has a compassion for such women. You begin by wanting to like this woman who claims it's the common reader who makes or breaks an author. As you read on, you find yourself happily taken in and smiling at her wit, humor and insight.

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Virginia Woolf: Feminism and the Reader
Anne E. Fernald
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Avant-Garde: War, Civilization, Modernity (Gender and Culture Series)

ASIN: 1403969655
Release Date: 2006-08-03

Book Description

This study argues that Virginia Woolf taught herself how to be a feminist artist and public intellectual through her revisionary reading. Fernald gives a clear view of Woolf's tremendous body of knowledge and her constant references to past literary periods.

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A Book Written Specifically for Woolfies
A Brilliant Writer Negotiates the Works of a Brilliant Writer
There she was
Woolf is not easy, but this book makes her easier

The Mrs. Dalloway Reader
Virginia Woolf , and Francine Prose
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0156030152

Book Description

This first volume of its kind contains the complete text of and guide to Virginia Woolf's masterpiece, plus Mrs. Dalloway's Party and numerous journal entries and letters by Virginia Woolf relating to the book's genesis and writing. The distinguished novelist Francine Prose has selected these pieces as well as essays and appreciations, critical views, and commentary by writers famous and unknown. Now with additional scholarly commentary by Mark Hussey, professor of English at Pace University, this complete volume illuminates the creation of a celebrated story and the genius of its author.

Includes essays and commentary from:
Michael Cunningham
E. M. Forster
Margo Jefferson
James Wood
Mary Gordon
Elaine Showalter
Daniel Mendelsohn
Sigrid Nunez
Deborah Eisenberg
Elissa Schappell

Customer Reviews:

A Book Written Specifically for Woolfies.......2007-04-18

I admit that I almost was very middle aged when I read any of Woolf's novels. And, that was only because I read "The Hours."

I learned that the character names therein related to Mrs. Dalloway and other characters of her novels. So, I picked up "To the Lighthouse" and experienced my first "stream of consciousness" style which I analogize to ADD - now the novel is dialogue, then thought, then observation, then . . . and all in one sentence. But, within that one sentence, you learn more than most authors can present on pages.

Reading one page of Woolf takes twice or three times as much time as other authors. Basically, the density of the writing style prohibits skimming, prohibits glossing, or prohibits you from losing concentration.

Modern authors who can conjure as much in as little paper include J.M. Coetzee or V.S. Naipual. These are three great names in the all-time history of fiction. I truly believe that she influenced these writers and hundreds of others.

This book awakened me to many things which I did not know lay within the pages. And, it also helped explain some of the orthodox-like exactitude of the characters, names and plot of "The Hours." Woolf's fans are true blue, died-in-the-wool absolutists. And, this book reflects that more than anything. Many of the published fans herein are famous in their own right, and they are just as devout to Woolf as her secret admirers - like me and probably you (who else but a Woolfie would be reading about this book?).

I recommend this book greatly as it educated me more than I could ever have imagined about the relationship between the book and her life and other related events.

A Brilliant Writer Negotiates the Works of a Brilliant Writer.......2006-12-11

Francine Prose is one of our more important writers (novels 'Blue Angel', 'After', 'A Changed Man', 'Primitive People'; probing biographies 'Caravaggio: Painter of Miracles'), a writer with a profound respect of the past, for the art of writing and the art of reading. Her most recent book is titled 'Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them' should give an idea of what is in store in this most enjoyable and illuminating book THE MRS. DALLOWAY READER.

Prose writes an Introduction that, while brief, offers keys to unlocking the genius that was Virginia Woolf. 'She longed to fill the book [Mrs. Dalloway] with "speed and life", to "give life & death, sanity & insanity; I want to criticize the social system & to show it at work, at its most intense.' Prose extracts quotes form Woolf's writings in an astute manner that allows us to understand the tortured genius who wrote them. As far as the book 'Mrs. Dalloway', Prose writes '...its all here: life, death, sex, love, marriage, parenthood, youth, age, the present and the past, memory, London, war, reason and unreason, loyalty, medicine, social snobbery, friendship, compassion, cruelty; the occasionally apt but more often unfounded snap judgments we make about ourselves, each other, loved ones, strangers, and the world in which chance and fortune have thrown us all together'. She touches on Woolf's insanity and conflicted sexuality that blossomed with Vita Sackville-West, and with her suicide by drowning, but she is far more interested in sharing the manner in which Woolf created her books - her fleshing out of the state of consciousness.

As editor Francine Prose then gathers writings form such erudite dignitaries as Katherine Mansfield, E.M. Forster, Michael Cunningham, Daniel Mendelsohn, Sigrud Nunez et al, couples these observations with Woolf's own serialized beginnings of her famous novel, and then offers us the entire MRS DALLOWAY at the end of the book. Reading Virginia Woolf in this atmosphere serves to enlighten the reader and once again prove that this novel is one of the more important writings of the last century. This book is a treasure! Grady Harp, December 06

There she was.......2006-02-09

`Mrs Dalloway' is a kind of cultural phenomena.

Everyone that I know has a different take on who she is, what this book is, and what the novel is supposed to stand for. Enter into this fray the authors own opinion about the whole of it and you have an all-out melee of fiction versus fiction.

This book, The Mrs Dalloway Reader, attempts to focus this problem somewhat. In it, not only will you find the novel itself, but you will also find various supplementary materials that help to ease you into what this novel is and what it means to so many different people. From those whose experience began with trying to impress a girl (and the lucky happenstance of finding the book at a Book-Mobile) to those who fought off the strains of absinthe addiction, the short pieces in range from essays to the first `draft' of the novel `Mrs Dalloway's Party'. Include in this assortment such lovingly-crafted emulations as Jane Mansfield's `The Garden Party' and you've got yourself a real winning combination.

But is this a good reason to buy this book? Don't you need more reasons? Of course!

Take this one: I knew absolutely nothing about Virginia Woolf when I purchased this book. She lived about 100 years ago. She wrote many books and I've seen some of her diaries in the hands of female students when I was in high school about ten years ago. She is popular with the intelligent-female group, those who want to be well-read and know the difference between Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley. Add to this that I am a guy. Now, take all that and combine it, dashing in the fact that this book single-handedly introduced me to who Virginia Woolf is and what she stood for- just through the supplementary material- and you have not only a great novel but a good place to get your foot into the door of this wonderful writer.

Is that still not enough? Okay: supplementary material aside, how is the book? Wonderful. It is a style of writing that I've heard called `Impressionistic' by some learned person. This is true- until you read Virginia Woolf (who is far easier to understand than other stream-of-consciousness writers such as Joyce) you have no idea what great pictures such simple things as words can express. Mrs Dalloway does this too, moving the reader through a simple narrative that is painted with poetical words, bringing to life a novel that is to fiction what Renoir is to painting; only the basic outline is there, amid all the broad strokes, and you must look to find it...but it is amazing when you see it.

LP

Bottom line: If you know nothing about Virginia Woolf and want a good, solid platform from which to start, pick this one. If you know a lot about her and want to explore more, you pick this one too.

Woolf is not easy, but this book makes her easier.......2004-01-03

Francine Prose's Mrs. Dalloway Reader makes the enigmatic and brilliant Virginia Woolf's masterpiece and bit easier for us modern readers. Since the publication of Cunningham's spectacular The Hours and the movie titled the same, Woolf's writing has undergone a renaissance, rising once again on bestseller lists everywhere. But she's STILL difficult, with the loooong sentences, endless paragraphs, the convoluted windings of words and thoughts and phrases and explanations and descriptions and disclaimers with which her writing is rife.
This book is the missing link. It includes the complete text of Mrs. Dalloway and Mrs. Dalloway's Party, plus relevant journal entries and letters by Virginia Woolf relating to the creation of Mrs. Dalloway. Also included are essays and reviews by other writers, all about Mrs. Dalloway. Taken all together, these snippets function like a lovely roadmap into not only the character of Mrs. Dalloway, but into the mind of her creator.
Top notch.

The Second Common Reader: Annotated Edition

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Woolf's essays present the author's stream of consciousness.

The Second Common Reader: Annotated Edition
Virginia Woolf
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Essays | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0156028166

Book Description

Here, in twenty-six essays, Woolf writes of English literature in its various forms, including the poetry of Donne; the novels of Defoe, Sterne, Meredith, and Hardy; Lord Chesterfield’s letters and De Quincey’s autobiography. She writes, too, about the life and art of women. Edited and with an Introduction by Andrew McNeillie; Index.

Customer Reviews:

Woolf's essays present the author's stream of consciousness........1999-04-13

The Second Common Reader is merely an extension of Woolf's own literary genius as she enters into the minds of authors such as Donne, Hardy, DeFoe and Swift, among others. She uses her "stream of consciousness" literary tool to incorporate the life of the writer into his or her own work. This book is necessary for anyone interested in stream of consciousness writing and criticism. Woolf, once again, never ceases to amaze me.

Virginia Woolf: Public and Private Negotiations

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Virginia Woolf: Public and Private Negotiations
Anna Snaith
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Women Writers & Feminist Theory | Books & Reading | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1403911789

Book Description

In this new paperback edition of Virginia Woolf: Public and Private Negotiations, Anna Snaith explores the centrality of ideas of public and private in Woolf's life and writing. The book offers a fresh understanding of Woolf's feminism, her narrative techniques, her attitudes to publication, and her role in public debate. It draws on new manuscript material and previously unexplored letters to Woolf from her reading public.

Michael Cunningham's The Hours: A Reader's Guide (Continuum Contemporaries)

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Boring
To Do with Words What Hendrix Did with the Guitar

Michael Cunningham's The Hours: A Reader's Guide (Continuum Contemporaries)
Tory Young
Manufacturer: Continuum International Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Hours

ASIN: 0826414761

Book Description

This is part of a new series of guides to contemporary novels. The aim of the series is to give readers accessible and informative introductions to some of the most popular, most acclaimed and most influential novels of recent years - from `The Remains of the Day' to `White Teeth'. A team of contemporary fiction scholars from both sides of the Atlantic has been assembled to provide a thorough and readable analysis of each of the novels in question.

Customer Reviews:

Boring.......2006-12-14

This is my third Continuum Contemporaries guide. The other two, Kazuo Ishiguro's THE REMAINS OF THE DAY by Adam Parkes and A. S. Byatt's POSSESSION by Catherine Burgass are worth every cent. Both critics place their respective novels into a recognizable historical context and provide plenty of biographical information but never lose sight of the texts as literature, teasing out dozens of hidden meanings and innuendos. All in all, most books in the Continuum series are vigorous, to-the-point, and (most importantly) fun to read.

Not so with Tory Young. She is obviously very knowledgeable about "queer" literature of the 80s-90s period, and knows Cunningham's novel like the palm of her hand, but the overall presentation, in this book, of supporting critical evidence is soporific. Young's analysis sinks under a wealth of gratuitous academic allusions; there is a reference in almost every sentence (the bibliography at the end of the book is two pages long)! There is very little of Tory Young in all this. She merely collected what everyone ever said about the book and put it, rather nicely and coherently, together.

My other complaint is that she spends too much time talking about the movie. I love Daldry's film as much as I love the novel, but I bought this guide specifically to help me understand Cunningham's artistry in all its many nuances. Burgass's guide to POSSESSION is excellent in that respect. I go back to it each time I reread Byatt's book; the same goes for Ishiguro's REMAINS.

This guide, on the other hand, is not worth your money OR your time. You'll have a much more productive afternoon browsing through reviews on the Internet. A waste (at 87 pages) of shelf-space.

To Do with Words What Hendrix Did with the Guitar.......2005-03-19

To do with words what Hendrix did with the guitar was the goal of former self-described slacker Michael Cunningham when he realized in his late 20s he wanted to give writing a serious go. It's an interesting phrase and one of many which shed light on the Pulitzer-winning novel "The Hours" in Tory Young's Reader's Guide.

In four clear sections, the novelist, the novel, the novel's reception, and its adaptation to film are discussed. One complaint: The film isn't discussed to nearly the extent the book is, and considering its quality, this seems a missed opportunity. Also, the book wanders into academic jargon of an insular and confusing kind on occasion.

Provocative and illuminating discussions of the difference between assimilationist and transgressive gay lit (David Leavitt, Hollinghurst, & Cunningham vs. J. T. Leroy & Dennis Cooper) help make this book worthwhile. So do descriptions of critical reactions to an American author "riffing" on a classic English novel (Mrs. Dalloway). Cunningham's weaknesses are discussed, but the Reader's Guide makes it clear that the deftness of his three interwoven narratives and the luminosity of his prose more than compensate.

I would have liked more biographical info about Cunningham; saying he's "guarded" about his personal life is no excuse not to learn and speculate about it. It's an interesting topic since Cunningham may be the premier living American author.

A lot will rest on his upcoming novel "Specimen Days," which I admit I am eager for; it's set for a June release. When I read Cunningham I am melancholic because he refuses to dodge the most difficult things in life: suffering, loss, and missed connections. There is plenty of death in Cunningham, but the wake is packed with the flowers of his pitch-perfect prose. His novels unfold with a sort of sad beauty; he shares Henry James' gift for the well-developed female character and her complex interior emotional life, most notably in "The Hours."

Get this trim handsome 80-page Reader's Guide if you're a Cunningham fan like I am. Thorough analysis combines with interesting tidbits to make good reading.

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Excellent Overview of a Brilliant Author

Virginia Woolf Reader
Virginia Woolf
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0156935902

Book Description

This rich introduction to the art of Virginia Woolf contains the complete texts of five short stories and eight essays, together with substantial excerpts from the longer fiction and nonfiction. An ideal volume for those encountering Woolf for the first time as well as for those already devoted to her work. Edited and with a Preface by Mitchell A. Leaska.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Overview of a Brilliant Author.......2002-12-07

This compact anthology presents a fine selection of fiction and nonfiction by one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. The selections of essays and memoirs are especially good, and while it can't do full justice to Woolf's longer works, this volume does include several excerpts from her best novels. If you have never read Virginia Woolf before, start with her brilliant book-length essay "A Room of One's Own" (represented here by too brief a portion) along with this anthology. And, for those who have already discovered her work, this collection makes a nice sampler and refresher - a book to pull off the shelf whenever you want to dip into that extraordinary mind (and prose) again.

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The Second Common Reader
Virginia Woolf
Manufacturer: Harcourt, Brace and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Virginia Woolf A to Z: A Comprehensive Reference for Students, Teachers and Common Readers to Her Life, Work and Critical Reception (Literary A to Z)

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A must!
Excellent resource

Virginia Woolf A to Z: A Comprehensive Reference for Students, Teachers and Common Readers to Her Life, Work and Critical Reception (Literary A to Z)
Mark Hussey
Manufacturer: Facts on File
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0816030200

Book Description

Her revolutionary novels and essays have inspired generations of feminists, and her life has aroused both interest and speculation. In Virginia Woolf A-Z, the author's works and autobiographical writings are set in the context of her infamous social milieu. Eight "family" trees map out the complicated relationships and living arrangements of the Bloomsbury Group, and a chronology gives a quick overview of the major events of Woolf's life. With over 1,300 entries and fifty illustrations, this desktop companion is the ideal antidote to those afraid of Virginia Woolf, and valuable beyond measure to those already familiar with her work.

Customer Reviews:

A must!.......2007-01-01

This reference has all the "A-to-Z" entries one would expect but the critical analyses of every one of Woolf's novels makes this a must-have book for the new Woolf fan.

Excellent resource.......1999-08-13

This book supplemented a course I took on the works of Woolf. It is filled with interesting background material and helpful character biographies. Hussey skillfully condensed volumes of biographical and critical work on Woolf into one, user-friendly manual.

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The Common Reader
Virginia Woolf
Manufacturer: Harcourt Brace
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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