The New Dress and Other Stories

by Virginia Woolf

As Mabel Waring takes off her cloak and steps into the drawing room of Clarissa Dalloway, she immediately realizes that something is not her pale-yellow silk dress, which she has had specially made for the occasion, is clearly old-fashioned, dowdy and out of place. Everyone seems to be looking at her in dismay or mocking her appearance. Crushed at once by her insecurity, Mabel is pervaded by a sense of selfloathing, and feels utter revulsion for the social world she has tried so hard to impress.

Written in 1924 and perhaps intended for inclusion in Mrs Dalloway, a book Woolf was working on at the time, The New Dress is here accompanied by most of the short stories she published in her lifetime, as well as six posthumously published pieces that share the milieu and some of the characters of her celebrated novel. Together, they reveal their author as one of the finest practitioners in the field of short fiction.

Alma Classics is committed to making available a wide range of literature from around the globe. Most of the titles are enriched by an extensive critical apparatus, notes and extra reading material, as well as a selection of photographs. The texts are based on the most authoritative edition and edited using a fresh, accessible editorial approach. With an emphasis on production, editorial and typographical values, Alma Classics aspires to revitalize the whole experience of reading classics.

162 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 21, 2024

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

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unparalleled Virginia Woolf, so I don’t have much more to say that wouldn’t be different variations of how her genius is so far beyond what I’m capable of fully appreciating, except ‘Lappin and Lapinova’ genuinely changed my life. There are two distinct periods in my life: before L&L, and after L&L.

[Kaja · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5 ⭐️ Some moving stories alternate with a few strange ones.

[faith · Rating 4 out of 5]

love woolf’s writing — a lot of this is stories that wld be in mrs dalloway (which unfortunately i hv not read yet, i swear im not a fake fan im getting to it), with the classic stream of consciousness that involves very intense highkey social anxiety / self consciousness (relatable). love the way she sketches her characters, rendering them in a matter of sentences and figures.

“solid objects” showcases woolf’s ability to paint abstract / modernist shapes(a blob that becomes people who then collect blobs/stones — the undefinable draw of the intangible). then the sweeping atmospheric portraits of in the orchard and the shooting party etc. then the kind of repressed anguish / grief particularly of women in this social milieu. somehow she makes something so perfectly complete in such short stories.

[Vonprice · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely edition of 18 short stories and a short biography of Virginia Woolf. I found some of the stories very moving and beautifully written but some were just too ethereal for me to be able to fully grasp the meaning. My favourites were probably those which bore some reference to the novel Mrs Dalloway.

[Marina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating to read Virginia Woolf’s short stories and witness how the themes and ideas re-emerge in her novels. I particularly enjoyed Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street (which she expanded to create the first chapter of her novel, Mrs Dalloway), Three Pictures, Lappin and Lapinova, and The Legacy.

[Giovanni Jacobs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the way she captures the anxiety of the middle class towards social acceptance and death which are often conflated with each other. She also has a way of taking snapshots of people's lives that leaves one with a sense of longing for something one can't quite quantify.

[silvia]

love woolf! don’t love mrs dalloway…
faves: solid objects, three pictures, the lady in the looking glass, lapin and lapinova