The Mrs. Dalloway Reader: A Complete Literary Anthology―Masterpiece Novel, Essays, and Criticism for Book Lovers

by Virginia Woolf, Francine Prose

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

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Literature, Essays, Novels, British Literature, Literary Criticism

378 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2003

About the author

(Adeline) Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.

During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

Reviews

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands down, my favorite book in the entire universe. I have a copy at home, a copy in my apartment, and a copy at work. All are care-worn, dog-eared, highlighted, underlined, creased, and well-loved. A beloved professor once told me that I will appreciate this book at 20 and I will appreciate it for entirely different reasons at 40. Well, 2.5 years after my first reading, I already find that different elements strike me for different reasons. I like that: a book with which you can grow old. Sometimes, reading it is like sinking into words as soft and beautiful as butter. Sometimes, it's a challenge to make my life better, more valuable, to be more aware of the life I'm living and the society in which I'm living. Other times, it's a tribute to the sadness in the world; the heartbreaking sadness. Still others times, it's a resounding song about love and the little things that make the day such a joy. A must-read for everyone in the whole world, I believe. Find what it means to you!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

It feels silly to rate the reader lower than the book, seeing how it contains the book, and the extra content hyped me for it. But except for The Garden Party and bits of Woolf’s prototype novella Mrs. Dalloway’s Party, the rest of the content is uneven and pales in comparison; how couldn’t it? Mrs. Dalloway was a joy though, and it’s funny that I basically had the exact same reaction to it that I had in high school, where it was a watershed for me. Full passages came back, and so many of the same impressions. I saw the same sunlight, the same London, and felt the same alive, almost buzzing in the text. This could indicate that I haven’t developed any further powers of analysis since then, but I prefer to think it’s because my middle-age energy was strong even as a teenager.

[Taury · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf is a classic piece of literature that is set post WW1- London. It covers a day in the world of Clarissa Dalloway. It covers social expectations and how to fit in with mental illness. I tried to read this novel but was unable to comprehend anything I was reading. I switched to audio. I had a lot of issues connecting in anyway to the story. Simultaneously the story tells about Septimus Warren Smith, who is a veteran suffering from PTSD and his demise. While the novel is well written, I lacked connection

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Brilliant Writer Negotiates the Works of a Brilliant Writer

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

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Mrs. Dalloway has changed my life. Being my first Virginia Woolf novel, I was tentative with it, afraid from what I had heard that it would be dreadful and hard to read. After Mrs. Dalloway, however, I find that there is not enough Virginia Woolf in the world to satisfy my cravings! It has been difficult to transition myself back to reading anything else because Woolf is just too good at her craft.



This particular edition contains textual analysis and even a series of shorts written by Woolf entitled "Mrs. Dalloway's Party," which add a further layer of depth to the already deep novel. However, there is an even better surprise given by this edition -- and that is the 1927 preface, written by Woolf herself, and "Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street," which is where the whole novel sprang to life.



This is a must-have for any fan of Woolf's, and a must-read for any fan of literature on the whole.

[heartful · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can see how her stream of consciousness style was innovative but I didn't like the characters enough to care about what happened to them.

[Kellie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't finish it. What the heck is it about? I feel awful, being an English teacher, that I couldn't read this. I mean, I'm sure I COULD, but ug. I just could NOT push on.

[Julia]

a friend of my sister's whose father works in the publishing industry and is continually afflicted by a heap of uncorrected proofs gave this to me back in september or so, thanks to my vwoolf-lover reputation; it sat on my desk in my dorm room for most of the year, unattended to possibly even longer than any other book that sat on my desk in my dorm room for most of the year. when i returned home of the summer it sat on my carpet. it was getting to the point that i thought i would simply never read this humble uncorrected proof, beige-covered and bare and bearing only a font in common with the final cover, but for some reason yesterday i sat on the carpet of my bedroom and began reading. (considering i just read between the acts a couple weeks ago, this act was probably not as inexplicable as i'm depicting it.) then i read some more this morning before i descended to the kitchen for the sunday new york times (my sundays revolve around and are devoted to the sunday new york times, and normally the sunday review is the first clump of words i read on sunday mornings), and then i read some more this afternoon, outside, accompanied by dogs and apple slices and dried cranberries and mixed nuts. proof, again, i suppose, that there is quite often, maybe always, a Right Time to read things, and one should just be patient and wait for them.

anyway the book itself i find for some reason inherently amusing, and i'm not sure why. it's a silly little thing, full of a few short tossed-off essays, some mysteriously chosen diary entries, and one especially mysteriously chosen letter, a katherine mansfield short story, plus some proto-dalloway nonstarters (seven short stories called 'mrs dalloway's party) and, of course, mrs dalloway itself. (not precisely in that order.) i admit not all the essays are 'short tossed-off'; daniel mendelsohn as usual is excellent (probably because it was first published in the new york review of books, while some of the later essays seem to have been written for this reader) and weirdly absent—in fact the essay is positioned against—the ambient misogyny that in some ways sadly emanates from his output and attitude occasionally (in any case his bigger/more consistent problem is his elitism/snobbery, and all these are more explicit in his twitter presence than his professional work, and it is likely that his snobbishness is integral to the quality of his work, so. BUT ANYWAY. james wood's little tossed-off piece for the PEN center or whatever is also excellent because, like, duh. (say what you will about his biases and personal tastes but he is always undeniably good at what he does.) michael cunningham's snippet (which at a page and a half, also tossed off for the same PEN center event i think, is too tiny to be called an essay) is important primarily because it provides this dumb perfect depiction of virginia woolf as he conceived of her at age fifteen: "I knew Virginia Woolf was very tall and insane and lived in a lighthouse and jumped in the ocean." deborah eisenberg's essay says like nothing which is sad because i expected better of her, and sigrid nunez's is irritating because you realize after all this time she is still in anxious thrall to susan sontag and that in fact this essay is an attempt to discard woolf in the manner one discards famous writers to show one's own elegant and sophisticated intelligence, because once "Susan Sontag suggested that my passion for Woolf was something I would outgrow." i mean i get it, this is an understandable response to susan sontag delivering an opinion-cum-proclamation unto you. but one can disagree with susan sontag, really. however it was around this essay that i thought, none of the essayists collected in this reader are as smart as susan sontag, which is an irrelevant thought but probably a true one (i happen to be reading sontag's against interpretation right now so it was relevant to me). i would complain more about nunez's essay, which degrades into a collection of weird snide wrong jabs at virginia woolf and a collection of further jabs by a whole bevy of writers (as if nunez needs the protection of a whole virginia-hater gang to levy her opinions, or something, it's really quite weird), but that would be petty. elissa schappell's essay is distressing, like honestly just distressing, because i still don't think she gets mrs dalloway by the end of her weird absinthe-triggered disease/disintegration. or maybe i don't get mrs dalloway, like when daniel mendelsohn said the thing the film adaptation of the hours gets wrong is that mrs dalloway's fine. she's obviously not suicidal either but i always thought the point of the book in some ways is that no one's fine, or that words like "fine" (there's a reason mendelsohn doesn't say good, content, happy, right?) are superficial words, and always imply a not-completely-corresponding inside. (good, content, happy—these are words with body.) whatever, i agree with mendelsohn versus the position of the hours film adaptation. and his essay is suitably meaty. that's the problem with the reader—on the whole it's strangely light, insubstantial. which, if you're going to have a reader for mrs dalloway that isn't very good, is probably the most appropriate type of not-very-goodness, because what always amazes me about dalloway is how light a read it is, how it floats along and you follow it hypnotized, but you never forget that what's happening is a very good trick wherein something that is very substantial that gravity should be commanding to fall is somehow, impossibly, floating.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to read Woolf's diary and the short stories plus thoughts from other writers regarding Mrs. D.

[Elizabeth (Miss Eliza) · Rating 1 out of 5]

*Special Content only on my blog, Strange and Random Happenstance during Roaring Back to Reading (June-August 2020)

Mrs. Dalloway is having a party and she has gone out to buy the flowers herself, as her maid is busy with other preparations for the event that night. The walk she takes through the parks and streets of London on this beautiful day in mid-June has Clarissa remembering a summer long ago in the countryside at Bourton, a summer where, little did she know it, the rest of her life would be set in motion by choosing the reliable Richard Dalloway over the lovesick Peter Walsh. As fate would have it Peter Walsh has just returned to England after a long sojourn in India. After being rejected by Clarissa he proposed to the first girl he met on the boat to India and has come back to England seeking a divorce because he has fallen in love with a married woman with two young children and they mean to marry, once their respective spouses are disposed of. But seeing Clarissa all these long years later hidden emotions come bursting forth like a damn collapsing and he finds himself crying in her presence. Fleeing her sight the two of them dwell on each other in their thoughts the rest of the day. Clarissa thinking of the failure their marriage would have been and Peter wondering if perhaps it isn't too late for them... As people cross her mind and the past is more relevant than the present, what is and isn't important shifts. Because while it may seem crazy to some, this party Clarissa is throwing is very important to her. It lets her connect to people, show them a little kindness, make it known that she thinks about others above anything else. Be it a book they'd like to read or a certain dish they'd like to eat, she always has others on her mind and at the end of the night one person will be on her mind more than even Peter, a young shell shocked veteran, Septimus Warren Smith. She hears from the young man's doctor at her party that he had committed suicide earlier in the evening. Little did she know that her day mirrored his, as his wife mused on their lives, as we followed Septimus and his Lucrezia, decidedly unable to enjoy this day in mid-June due to their burdens that, in the end, get set down.

The thing about "classics" is some classics aren't for everyone. You can see their historical significance, you can admire their ingenuity, you can even applaud them for breaking down barriers, all while not actually liking the book; and I did not like Mrs. Dalloway. At all. Written in a steam of consciousness style that played like a game of regimented tag with a shifting point of view the book is bound to easily lose your attention when it isn't infuriating you. Right now it's hard to escape the ever growing horror that is the news and reading is a refuge, a refuge that is at the moment hard to escape into even with the most perfect of books. Therefore to have a book so fragmentary and dreamlike, more poetry than prose, I found it simply impossible to connect with Mrs. Dalloway and it's complete lack of narrative. Mrs. Dalloway isn't even the star of her own book for Pete's sake! At times I felt I was going insane, which maybe was Virginia Woolf's goal? I seriously don't know what she meant to do here, because this "Reader" includes a plethora of critical essays and I was supposed to hate the doctors trying to help Septimus when I thought their care was thoughtfully presented... so therefore I'm disconnected from the meaning of individuality over conformity because I wanted him to get better instead of kill himself? Ugh. At least I didn't feel totally alone in my dislike. The author Sigrid Nunez, who wrote a book on Virginia Woolf's monkey Mitz, says that in her opinion Mrs. Dalloway is contrived. I personally think it might have just been overworked, because the book's precursor, "Mrs. Dalloway's Party," read fresher to me, but if you can imagine it, bleaker. And I won't even start on my contempt for The Hours which arose from reading all the critical essays. How can a "retelling" by A MAN win all these accolades? Unacceptable.

[Tom Garback · Rating 5 out of 5]

Giving this 5 stars because I have to give it something, and the novel itself is 5 stars in my mind, though what this review pertains to is that content which is exempted from a review—for how do I review the editor’s compilation of diaries, shorts, essays, and letters when I know nothing of the position—and thus I will not provide a critical or reader score, nor the official star marks.

I am quitting the titular novel work only 15 pages in, as I’ve only 5 days before it is due for class, but primarily because I have read the novel before, 2 and a half years ago. While I would actually want to re-read this, for it is rare that ever the interest of returning to a book falls upon me, I think it impractical to read the remaining 160 pages, either for class or for merit (in the likely case that I wouldn’t complete the task by Monday’s lecture) when there are so many other books on my plate. So it goes; how’s that for some intertextuality?

The materials in this collection are fascinating, though I imagine rather limited in scope. Nevertheless, this is a terrific expansion of my understanding of the work, though I take my leave with a bit of guilt.

[Saettare · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not overly scholarly, “The Mrs. Dalloway Reader” is a very stimulating resource. Not least of all because it includes selections from the story cycle that preceded the development of her masterpiece. As Francine Prose puts it in her introduction, "The dissimilarities are so striking and so instructive that the [novel and these earlier stories], studied together, should be required reading for every beginning writer or serious lover of literature." Woolf's process of singling out surfaces in which she proceeds to excavate begins to emerge; how she "digs out beautiful caves behind [her] characters" (p. 95). Which is what she calls her "tunneling process": "I tell the past by installments, as I have need of it."

The selection of personal essays and appreciations by other writers and critics that are also included give an even handed assessment of the work and its oftentimes over valued importance, at least according contributions like that of Sigrid Nunez. And so it is refreshing to get a critique or two mixed in with the fawning admiration of Woolf's staggeringly rich novel.

[Nicole Ediss · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have had this book on my shelf for a while. It was finally time to crack it.

To be honest, I skipped all the critical essays and reviews, which were interestingly in the front of the reader, because I wanted to get right to the novel. It is a difficult read. It's a monumental read. I skipped back to the intro in the reader at one point, and it was cool to read that Woolf wanted to achieve a specific effect in her novel, and she found herself successful in doing so.

That effect is a whole novel told in stream of consciousness from multiple characters points of view without too much warning in the transitioning between character. There are no chapters and only a few places where there is a marked pause. But the way in which she reveals characters through their internal musings and in comparison to the things the actually say to each other, is poignant and taps into the tragedy of the modern human condition.

I recommend "Mrs. Dalloway" to people who want to see the potential reaches of the genre "novel".

[Bernie4444 · Rating 5 out of 5]

The complete Mrs. Dalloway and much more

The only reason to buy a plain-Jane version is as a placeholder for your library.

I learned about Mrs. Dalloway through a Great Course “The Western Literary Canon in Context” video presentation. Before this, all I knew about Virginia Wolf (1882-1941) was not to be afraid. This course was just an overview of the author and her works in the context of the Western Cannon.

A search for a good version of the book led me to this “The Mrs. Dalloway Reader.” Seems the next best thing to taking a class. So for people who just want to dive in and read without any contextual information, this reader has complete writing. Yet if someone wants to be an informed reader before or after reading, this reader has a great number of supplemental materials. If you are not familiar with the person(s) presenting the supplements, then you may want to look them up individually. I do recognize some and trust them.

[nancy e smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.”

I like to picture a Frank Loesser musical opening, all the characters spilling onto the stage in their various states of emotion and purpose. Or one of those plays that has a similar milieu, people moving around, and then they freeze and one character, lighted, talks. Only darker than the musical. Mrs. Dalloway offers up a scoop of modernism: the crushing aftermath of World War I, the mess of colonialism, and the vestiges of classism. (I guess that’s still around.) Sally’s the one genuinely happy person, dropping into Mrs. D’s party because they haven’t seen each other in forever. We read it for book group, and we had lots to talk about.

[Caleb Chan]

Unlike anything that I've ever read. Been wanting to read something—anything, really—from Virginia Woolf for the past few years. But was assigned the text in a modernist lit class, and, despite not submitting anything on the book (other than a discussion post), actually ended up finishing it (which never happens for me).

The best British prose I've ever read.

I've never felt so much empathy for a snooty, upper-middle class character like Clarissa Dalloway. But something about Woolf's free indirect discourse style makes *every* character likeable.

Also, this edition contains lots of cool stuff. I didn't read most of this "bonus content," but particularly liked Woolf's diary entries. She is very cool.

[Kayleigh Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75 ⭐️

Someone talk to me about this book irl bc I have to write an essay on this so I’m going to keep this review short.

I really really love existential books. Books that make me think about life in new ways. This was so poetic, such a beautiful perspective, and I 100% want to read it again. To me, this was just full of people with regrets, wishing they would’ve done more or chosen differently, which is so human and real. Justice for Septimus.

Definitely will be looking more into Woolf’s work :)

[T.J. Gillespie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The majority of this book is the novel itself. (And a Katharine Mansfield story and Woolf's original short story series, "Mrs. Dalloway's Party.)

I was hoping for more criticism and commentary. It is a hodge-podge. Michael Cunningham gives a nice two-page peaen to the book; Daniel Mendelsohn then gives a long tribute to Cunningham's The Hours (and the movie). Sigrid Nunez gives perhaps the most honest take--there's a lot she doesn't like about it!

Skip it.
Just read the novel.

[Roberto Cantos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mrs. Dalloway is a masterpiece. The essays that come along with the novel, however, appear to mostly be introductions to work related to Virginia Woolf. I would've appreciated more in-depth analysis of the work. More theory supported by well-reasoned arguments, rather than personal narrative. Still it was a good introduction to Virginia Woolf and her work, and some of the essays were very useful.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm no expert on Virginia Woolf (shoulda been an English major!) and have been wanting to read Mrs. Dalloway for years. The novel requires a lot of focus to enjoy her literary majesty and I've got plenty of time these days!
I recommend reading the novel first (at the back of this collection) and then skimming the preface, letters, diary entries, and essays at the front of the book to see what interests you.
I give Mrs. Dalloway 4 stars and the supplemental material 2 stars.

[Alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this alongside Michael Cunningham's The Hours. This book contains wonderfully insightful analyses of Mrs Dalloway and into Virginia Woolf's life and art generally. There are also some complementary pieces such a short story by her peer Katherine Mansfield. While a bit dearer to buy, it's economical ultimately as it contains not only the novel, but also Mrs Dalloway's Party, also sold as a separate book. And then you get all the essays, diary entries and other bits. An excellent deal if you want to submerge. And read alongside The Hours, the value extracted was tremendous.

[Evan · Rating 2 out of 5]

well, I reminded myself of why I didn't like the books in my British modernism course years ago. the method of narration really gets old and boring really fast. half of the book or more could be cut and it really is left unaffected. this kind of writing really makes my brain lethargic.

yet I will acknowledge woolf is very skilled at it, and the last 30 pages or so were really a master-class. I would read that portion of the book again. but the rest of it did drag on.

[Gary Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Time again for my annual Mrs Dalloway reading -- but this was the first time reading the Reader, which is as close to a Norton Critical Edition of this novel that we'll ever get.

As usual, a 5-star rating for Mrs Dalloway, but I'm docking some points for the unevenness of the overall content of the Reader.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are few writers that inspire me to get up and write almost as much as they require my uninterrupted reading; Virginia Woolf is one. Her fluidity of language and vivid attention to every human detail is still rare. And this collection of the novel plus a handful of her short stories and letters, accompanied by others' essays, brings a lovely depth of context, affection, and critique.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it. I particularly liked how the essays and journal entries really showed the context of when and how Mrs Dalloway was written. I also discovered I really like the stream of consciousness style of writing.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll admit this rating reflects more my appreciation for the literary merits of the book rather than my personal enjoyment of the text. Stream of consciousness is not a preferred style of mine, but I acknowledge that Virginia Woolf does it well and in a more digestible fashion that James Joyce.

[Maeve O'Donnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

incredible to read the sequence / diary/ letters and come to mrs. d so prepped in her mind. like fanfiction lol. but some of the essays about the novel/her were like okay.......sure.......whatever........? anyway 4.5. i love you Virginia woolf like really i have feelings for you

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is sort of a lie, as I only read the intro, one of the stories from MRS DALLOWAY'S PARTY, and MRS. DALLOWAY itself.

[Elizabeth Swindell · Rating 2 out of 5]

not my fave type of book; interesting because of the dialogue about the changing era and modernization and the characters processing the changes in their society; dry and not a lot of excitement

[Ｐａｕｌａ]

Movie: The Hours watch (based on Mrs Dalloway)