In his 1998 novel The Hours, writer Michael Cunningham imagines Virginia Woolf sitting down to do battle with the draft of a book that will eventually become Mrs Dalloway. “Can a single day in the life of an ordinary woman be made into enough for a novel?” his fictional version of the novelist ponders.
The sweet, sad irony, of course, is that any reader of Mrs Dalloway knows that she needn’t fret: the answer to Woolf’s self-questioning is a resounding “yes”. She is, in fact, working on a story so dazzling and expansive that it will prove irresistible to generations of readers to come, including writers like Cunningham. A century on from its debut, Woolf’s fourth novel is “as vital as ever”, says Vintage Classics editor Charlotte Knight. To read it 100 years later is to be shocked by its immediacy and the sheer audacity of its experimentation; it’s no wonder that contemporary authors are still in its thrall.
