What do you think?
Rate this book
The Hours / Mrs. Dalloway
Michael Cunningham brings together his Pulitzer Prize–winning novel with the masterpiece that inspired it, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway.
In The Hours, the acclaimed author Michael Cunningham draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf and the story of her novel, Mrs. Dalloway, to tell the story of a group of contemporary characters struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, hope and despair. In this edition, Cunningham brings his own Pulitzer Prize–winning novel together with Woolf’s masterpiece, which has long been hailed as a groundbreaking work of literary fiction and one of the finest novels written in English.
The two novels, published side by side with a new introduction by Cunningham, display the extent of their affinity, and each illuminates new facets of the other in this joint volume. In his introduction, Cunningham re-creates the wonderment of his first encounter with Mrs. Dalloway at fifteen—as he writes, “I was lost. I was gone. I never recovered.” With this edition, Cunningham allows us to disappear into the world of Woolf and into his own brilliant mind.
In The Hours, the acclaimed author Michael Cunningham draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf and the story of her novel, Mrs. Dalloway, to tell the story of a group of contemporary characters struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, hope and despair. In this edition, Cunningham brings his own Pulitzer Prize–winning novel together with Woolf’s masterpiece, which has long been hailed as a groundbreaking work of literary fiction and one of the finest novels written in English.
The two novels, published side by side with a new introduction by Cunningham, display the extent of their affinity, and each illuminates new facets of the other in this joint volume. In his introduction, Cunningham re-creates the wonderment of his first encounter with Mrs. Dalloway at fifteen—as he writes, “I was lost. I was gone. I never recovered.” With this edition, Cunningham allows us to disappear into the world of Woolf and into his own brilliant mind.
448 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1925
62 people are currently reading
885 people want to read
About the author
Michael Cunningham
79 books4,255 followersMichael Cunningham is the author of the novels A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, The Hours (winner of the Pen/Faulkner Award & Pulitzer Prize), Specimen Days, and By Nightfall, as well as the non-fiction book, Land's End: A Walk in Provincetown. His new novel, The Snow Queen, will be published in May of 2014. He lives in New York, and teaches at Yale University.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
December 31, 2022
beautiful-est book i've ever seen in my life
April 3, 2024
I feel lied to. Everyone raved about these two books, I found them mediocre at best. Welp, at least I get to keep my pretty copy.
You can find my in-depth reviews here:
➣ Mrs. Dalloway (3 stars)
➣ The Hours (2 stars)
You can find my in-depth reviews here:
➣ Mrs. Dalloway (3 stars)
➣ The Hours (2 stars)
July 9, 2023
I had the privilege to visit Virginia and Leonard Woolf's writing cottage in Rodmell the other day, and found this beautifully made book a most suitable companion. Poring over Mrs. Dalloway on my train to the countryside, I was filled once again with that peculiar sense of newness that engulfed me on my first encounter with it several years ago: the feeling of having arrived at a threshold, of entering a new way of seeing both beauty and pathos in literature and the world around – and indeed, within – me, now all the more attuned to Life; London; this moment of June July. Walking along the farmlands in Southease, crossing the Ouse, and beholding the tower of the Church of St. Peter on the way to the cottage, I was overcome, at once, with this scenery, with the writer’s visions of London between the wars, and with that same feeling she described, as Clarissa Dalloway, of not being able to “say of anyone in the world now that they were this or were that:
I took to reading Michael Cunningham’s The Hours upon having made my way back home with the green walls of Monk’s House still fresh behind my eyes. “The Hours” had been the working title of Mrs. Dalloway once – discarded, perhaps, for "a sense of proportion” – and it felt entirely comely for this magnificent Pulitzer-winning novel inspired by it, an exploration of “three single days in the lives of three different women – one a writer, one a reader, and one a character in a novel written by a writer and read by a reader” (from the author’s Introduction). It is 1923 in Richmond, and Woolf is aching for London, working on her novel about a woman so unlike – and yet so profoundly reflective of – herself; it is 1949 in Los Angeles, and Laura Brown is reading this book while planning a birthday dinner for her husband; it is 1999 in New York City, and Clarissa Vaughan – nicknamed Mrs. Dalloway by her friends – plans a party to celebrate a major literary award received by her friend and former lover Richard while he battles against his AIDS-related illness.
In Cunningham’s riff on Mrs. Dalloway, time is just as tyrannical, depression still a legitimate expression of perspective, but the world is nonetheless transformed: the ravages of the first World War become those of the AIDS crisis, the woman buying the flowers has dared to live with a woman, and it is not the Queen but a movie star (either Vanessa Redgrave or Meryl Streep – both of whom ended up playing Clarissa in the respective movie adaptations of Mrs. Dalloway in 1997 and The Hours in 2002) that she spots while out on her errands. Here, Peter becomes Louis, Miss Kilman is Mary Krull, and Richard – who “seem(s) to have fallen out of time” – embodies both Septimus Smith and Woolf at the same time (“I don’t think two people could have been happier than we’ve been,” he says to Clarissa as Virginia wrote to Leonard before the plunge). Another woman rents a hotel room to read in peace (A Room of Her Own?), dares abandon the need to participate in the post-war performance of family and femininity to inhabit her own touch of brilliance. The world is transformed but not in its sorrows, nor in the depth with which they are felt.
Having arrived at The Hours the way I did, I daresay there is no better way to undertake its journey. I was engulfed in its triptych, enamoured by its flair, completely taken in by its heartfelt attempt at tribute. But as any worthy tribute should do, it also induced in me a renewed appreciation for Woolf’s own novel and its many rebellions – in understanding post-traumatic stress disorder, in voicing the absurdity of valuing “a sense of proportion” in a world where material security and despair aren’t proportionate; in contesting conversion, colonial thought, and the disciplining machinery of Empire while surrounded by it; and in daring to illuminate the inner world, with all its desires and regrets, of a woman like Clarissa Dalloway when the presses were almost singularly intent on churning out material about greatness and conquest (As Cunningham has her say in his book: "Men may congratulate themselves for writing truly and passionately about the movements of nations; they may consider war and the search for God to be great literature's only subjects; but if men's standing in the world could be toppled by an ill-advised choice of hat, English literature would be dramatically changed.")
The Ouse was a brilliant blue when I visited, and locals had discarded their bikes by the bridge to go swimming, no stones in their pockets. This is perspective, too, how the world keeps turning:
She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.”It was a strange feeling, put to text long ago by a woman whose favourite chair (upholstered by sister Vanessa Bell), whose paper binder (a Permafix no. 388934, now ‘vintage’ and the like of which I have never seen before), whose volumes of the complete works of Shakespeare (re-bound, in marbled paper, in meditative periods between her writing), and whose narrow single bed (small, especially for a woman of 5’9”) I was going to admire. I sat in the garden tended to by her husband – now by the fishpond, now behind a hedge away from prying eyes – and gulped down the last pages of this novel of interior worlds that she knew would be respected, but perhaps not so much admired or understood.
I took to reading Michael Cunningham’s The Hours upon having made my way back home with the green walls of Monk’s House still fresh behind my eyes. “The Hours” had been the working title of Mrs. Dalloway once – discarded, perhaps, for "a sense of proportion” – and it felt entirely comely for this magnificent Pulitzer-winning novel inspired by it, an exploration of “three single days in the lives of three different women – one a writer, one a reader, and one a character in a novel written by a writer and read by a reader” (from the author’s Introduction). It is 1923 in Richmond, and Woolf is aching for London, working on her novel about a woman so unlike – and yet so profoundly reflective of – herself; it is 1949 in Los Angeles, and Laura Brown is reading this book while planning a birthday dinner for her husband; it is 1999 in New York City, and Clarissa Vaughan – nicknamed Mrs. Dalloway by her friends – plans a party to celebrate a major literary award received by her friend and former lover Richard while he battles against his AIDS-related illness.
In Cunningham’s riff on Mrs. Dalloway, time is just as tyrannical, depression still a legitimate expression of perspective, but the world is nonetheless transformed: the ravages of the first World War become those of the AIDS crisis, the woman buying the flowers has dared to live with a woman, and it is not the Queen but a movie star (either Vanessa Redgrave or Meryl Streep – both of whom ended up playing Clarissa in the respective movie adaptations of Mrs. Dalloway in 1997 and The Hours in 2002) that she spots while out on her errands. Here, Peter becomes Louis, Miss Kilman is Mary Krull, and Richard – who “seem(s) to have fallen out of time” – embodies both Septimus Smith and Woolf at the same time (“I don’t think two people could have been happier than we’ve been,” he says to Clarissa as Virginia wrote to Leonard before the plunge). Another woman rents a hotel room to read in peace (A Room of Her Own?), dares abandon the need to participate in the post-war performance of family and femininity to inhabit her own touch of brilliance. The world is transformed but not in its sorrows, nor in the depth with which they are felt.
Having arrived at The Hours the way I did, I daresay there is no better way to undertake its journey. I was engulfed in its triptych, enamoured by its flair, completely taken in by its heartfelt attempt at tribute. But as any worthy tribute should do, it also induced in me a renewed appreciation for Woolf’s own novel and its many rebellions – in understanding post-traumatic stress disorder, in voicing the absurdity of valuing “a sense of proportion” in a world where material security and despair aren’t proportionate; in contesting conversion, colonial thought, and the disciplining machinery of Empire while surrounded by it; and in daring to illuminate the inner world, with all its desires and regrets, of a woman like Clarissa Dalloway when the presses were almost singularly intent on churning out material about greatness and conquest (As Cunningham has her say in his book: "Men may congratulate themselves for writing truly and passionately about the movements of nations; they may consider war and the search for God to be great literature's only subjects; but if men's standing in the world could be toppled by an ill-advised choice of hat, English literature would be dramatically changed.")
The Ouse was a brilliant blue when I visited, and locals had discarded their bikes by the bridge to go swimming, no stones in their pockets. This is perspective, too, how the world keeps turning:
“She belonged to a different age, but being so entire, so complete, would always stand up on the horizon, stone-white, eminent, like a lighthouse marking some past stage on this adventurous, long, long voyage, this interminable – this interminable life.”
March 31, 2024
I think this is the first time I have ever read not one but THREE female characters written by a man in such an eloquent and deeply resonating manner so much so that I am actually a bit scared and suspicious at how well Michael Cunningham managed to portray the stages of womanhood
December 15, 2025
Mrs Dalloway: AMEI AMEI AMEI!!!! Difficult to follow, claro — mas muito muito bonito.
“What is this terror? What is this ecstasy? He thought to himself. What is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement? It is Clarissa, he said. For there she was.”
The Hours: Did not expect to love this book so much! Made me want to dive very deep into the world of Virginia Woolf. We live!!!!
“What is this terror? What is this ecstasy? He thought to himself. What is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement? It is Clarissa, he said. For there she was.”
The Hours: Did not expect to love this book so much! Made me want to dive very deep into the world of Virginia Woolf. We live!!!!
November 20, 2025
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
10 out of 10
There is optimism in the beautiful, great, Pulitzer and PEN/Faulkner Awards winner that includes a few very sad, heartbreaking narratives that share depression, suicide and Virginia Woolf, her masterpiece Mrs. Dalloway as common themes.
Virginia Woolf becomes a fictional character in The Hours – and Nicole Kidman has won a deserved Oscar for her portrayal of the genius author – and the writer explains in the acknowledgements at the end of the book that he has studied a number of biographies, diaries and books on the life of the phenomenal writer in order to describe a day in the life of one of the best creators who have walked the earth.
The author of Mrs. Dalloway meditates on the work in progress, entertains thoughts of suicide, and is bored in her home in the country, from where she departs to the railway station, with thoughts of leaving for London, to wonder the streets in the big city, while her husband Leonard worries about her.
Virginia Woolf expects the visit of her sister, Vanessa Bell, who arrives with her two sons and daughter significantly earlier than expected – they are expected at four in the afternoon, the time by which the nervous, rebellious servant, Nelly, would have returned from the capital with the tea and desert ordered by her mistress.
The children have found a bird in the road, that seems to be dying, for which they prepare a resting place, although somewhat cruelly they also arrange for the funeral, the departure which has not yet arrived, in the garden, with grass and roses placed around the poor creature.
Thoughts of death and dying itself are a common thread, in the story of Virginia Woolf and the other personages depicted in The Hours – Mrs. Brown, who reads Mrs. Dalloway and contemplates the end of her life and that of her neighbor, Kitty, Clarissa Vaughan – called Mrs. Dalloway by her dying, suicidal friend and acclaimed poet, Richard – has to see the dear man jump – actually slide is the better word -to his death in front of her eyes.
Clarissa Vaughan aka Mrs. Dalloway lives in New York with her lesbian partner, Sally, and she prepares for a party to honor her friend, Richard, who has just been awarded a very prestigious prize for poetry, but alas, he is dying of AIDS and furthermore, his body is decaying and what is worse, he is losing his mental faculties- he talks about the party as if it has already taken place- he has moments of brilliance, his old self still in control, but it will all be gone soon.
Mrs. D, as the poet calls her, is out to get some flowers, when she sees on the set of a motion picture, a movie star looking out of her trailer, it seems to be Meryl Streep – who would play Clarissa Vaughan in the adaptation of the book, in a very symbolic move – or Vanessa Redgrave- a couple of onlookers feel it might have been Susan Sarandon.
Clarissa Vaughan has had a love affair with Richard, decades ago – she is over fifty now – when they had a love triangle of sorts, Louis Waters being the other man involved in this complicated relationship, which continued with the poet and the latter as lovers, up to the point where they break up in the railway station in Rome.
The third story inserted in The Hours concerns Mrs. Brown, who lives in Los Angeles, in 1949, who has son, Richie, is expecting another, for she is pregnant, and reads Mrs. Dalloway in the morning, in bed, while she feels she should be in the kitchen, preparing breakfast for her son and husband, who would be celebrating his birthday today.
Later in the day, when she makes a first cake for Dan Brown, her neighbor, Kitty, walks in, announcing the surprising, worrying news that she has to see a doctor in the afternoon, because she has something in her vagina – was it there? – the probable reason why she did not have children.
Comforting the scared woman, Laura Brown thinks about the complexities of life, the fact that they would be adversaries in different circumstances, when Kitty kisses her on the mouth – the theme of homosexuality is another shared aspect – Virginia Woolf kisses her sister on the mouth, in a sensual, intimate moment.
Mrs. Brown is unhappy with the cake she made, to the point of breakdown, attributing to it the symbol of failure, even if it only had the name on the top slightly misplaced and her husband would appreciate it anyway – the fact that both Dan and Richie make wishes on the cake that they continue to have in the future all that they get in the present seems to be a minus in the eyes of Laura Brown, but gratitude for what you have is the first rule of happiness.
The protagonist of the third story is a complex woman, both happy with a certain moment and also ready to say maybe this was it, that flash of pleasure is enough for the whole life, which could easily end now, by taking the bottle of sleeping pills in the cabinet for instance.
The character is so frail, confused, on the edge, that if one is to anticipate, we could perhaps say that if she would not get medical help soon, she would do something drastic, kill herself, for she does leave the house, after throwing the first cake into the garbage, driving aimlessly, until she reaches a hotel, where she takes a room to read for about two hours…
The Hours, the title in fact is referred to by Richard Brown, the poet who is dying and losing his control over his mind, when he speaks about the fact that The Hours can represent a curse for those in his position, depressed, at the end of their rope, suffering and knowing that the end is neigh and even worse, before death, they would become a wreck, so the thought of one hour and then another and another is excruciating.
There are many exhilarating, exulting, beautiful passages, in spite of the fact that there is so much depression, thoughts of death and suicide in there, for instance the comparison between readers and ghosts, or this one:
“What a thrill, what a shock, to be alive on a morning in June, prosperous, almost scandalously privileged, with a simple errand to run.”
10 out of 10
There is optimism in the beautiful, great, Pulitzer and PEN/Faulkner Awards winner that includes a few very sad, heartbreaking narratives that share depression, suicide and Virginia Woolf, her masterpiece Mrs. Dalloway as common themes.
Virginia Woolf becomes a fictional character in The Hours – and Nicole Kidman has won a deserved Oscar for her portrayal of the genius author – and the writer explains in the acknowledgements at the end of the book that he has studied a number of biographies, diaries and books on the life of the phenomenal writer in order to describe a day in the life of one of the best creators who have walked the earth.
The author of Mrs. Dalloway meditates on the work in progress, entertains thoughts of suicide, and is bored in her home in the country, from where she departs to the railway station, with thoughts of leaving for London, to wonder the streets in the big city, while her husband Leonard worries about her.
Virginia Woolf expects the visit of her sister, Vanessa Bell, who arrives with her two sons and daughter significantly earlier than expected – they are expected at four in the afternoon, the time by which the nervous, rebellious servant, Nelly, would have returned from the capital with the tea and desert ordered by her mistress.
The children have found a bird in the road, that seems to be dying, for which they prepare a resting place, although somewhat cruelly they also arrange for the funeral, the departure which has not yet arrived, in the garden, with grass and roses placed around the poor creature.
Thoughts of death and dying itself are a common thread, in the story of Virginia Woolf and the other personages depicted in The Hours – Mrs. Brown, who reads Mrs. Dalloway and contemplates the end of her life and that of her neighbor, Kitty, Clarissa Vaughan – called Mrs. Dalloway by her dying, suicidal friend and acclaimed poet, Richard – has to see the dear man jump – actually slide is the better word -to his death in front of her eyes.
Clarissa Vaughan aka Mrs. Dalloway lives in New York with her lesbian partner, Sally, and she prepares for a party to honor her friend, Richard, who has just been awarded a very prestigious prize for poetry, but alas, he is dying of AIDS and furthermore, his body is decaying and what is worse, he is losing his mental faculties- he talks about the party as if it has already taken place- he has moments of brilliance, his old self still in control, but it will all be gone soon.
Mrs. D, as the poet calls her, is out to get some flowers, when she sees on the set of a motion picture, a movie star looking out of her trailer, it seems to be Meryl Streep – who would play Clarissa Vaughan in the adaptation of the book, in a very symbolic move – or Vanessa Redgrave- a couple of onlookers feel it might have been Susan Sarandon.
Clarissa Vaughan has had a love affair with Richard, decades ago – she is over fifty now – when they had a love triangle of sorts, Louis Waters being the other man involved in this complicated relationship, which continued with the poet and the latter as lovers, up to the point where they break up in the railway station in Rome.
The third story inserted in The Hours concerns Mrs. Brown, who lives in Los Angeles, in 1949, who has son, Richie, is expecting another, for she is pregnant, and reads Mrs. Dalloway in the morning, in bed, while she feels she should be in the kitchen, preparing breakfast for her son and husband, who would be celebrating his birthday today.
Later in the day, when she makes a first cake for Dan Brown, her neighbor, Kitty, walks in, announcing the surprising, worrying news that she has to see a doctor in the afternoon, because she has something in her vagina – was it there? – the probable reason why she did not have children.
Comforting the scared woman, Laura Brown thinks about the complexities of life, the fact that they would be adversaries in different circumstances, when Kitty kisses her on the mouth – the theme of homosexuality is another shared aspect – Virginia Woolf kisses her sister on the mouth, in a sensual, intimate moment.
Mrs. Brown is unhappy with the cake she made, to the point of breakdown, attributing to it the symbol of failure, even if it only had the name on the top slightly misplaced and her husband would appreciate it anyway – the fact that both Dan and Richie make wishes on the cake that they continue to have in the future all that they get in the present seems to be a minus in the eyes of Laura Brown, but gratitude for what you have is the first rule of happiness.
The protagonist of the third story is a complex woman, both happy with a certain moment and also ready to say maybe this was it, that flash of pleasure is enough for the whole life, which could easily end now, by taking the bottle of sleeping pills in the cabinet for instance.
The character is so frail, confused, on the edge, that if one is to anticipate, we could perhaps say that if she would not get medical help soon, she would do something drastic, kill herself, for she does leave the house, after throwing the first cake into the garbage, driving aimlessly, until she reaches a hotel, where she takes a room to read for about two hours…
The Hours, the title in fact is referred to by Richard Brown, the poet who is dying and losing his control over his mind, when he speaks about the fact that The Hours can represent a curse for those in his position, depressed, at the end of their rope, suffering and knowing that the end is neigh and even worse, before death, they would become a wreck, so the thought of one hour and then another and another is excruciating.
There are many exhilarating, exulting, beautiful passages, in spite of the fact that there is so much depression, thoughts of death and suicide in there, for instance the comparison between readers and ghosts, or this one:
“What a thrill, what a shock, to be alive on a morning in June, prosperous, almost scandalously privileged, with a simple errand to run.”
April 19, 2023
〝what does the brain matter compared to the heart?〞
★★★
this was sadly a classic case of right book wrong time. I absolutely loved the writing and the prose and I found some of the themes really interesting but I just couldn't focus on it. I finished it a couple days ago and I can't even tell you any characters names or really what happened. I'm definitely going to give this another shot though and reread it in the future. as always, I'm not going to have anything groundbreaking to say about a classic that's almost a hundred years old so here are some beautiful quotes instead to hopefully make you want to pick this up!
〝mrs. dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.〞
〝he thought her beautiful, believed her impeccably wise; dreamed of her, wrote poems to her, which, ignoring the subject, she corrected in red ink.〞
〝to love makes one solitary.〞
〝did it matter then, she asked herself, walking towards bond street, did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely? all this must go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely?〞
〝it might be possible that the world itself is without meaning.〞
〝mrs dalloway is always giving parties to cover the silence〞
〝as we are a doomed race, chained to a sinking ship, as the whole thing is a bad joke, let us, at any rate, do our part; mitigate the suffering of our fellow-prisoners; decorate the dungeon with flowers and air-cushions; be as decent as we possibly can.〞
〝It is a thousand pities never to say what one feels.〞
〝peter would think her sentimental. so she was. for she had come to feel that it was the only thing worth saying – what one felt. cleverness was silly. one must say simply what one felt.〞
〝rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame〞
〝human beings have neither kindness, nor faith, nor charity beyond what serves to increase the pleasure of the moment.〞
cawpile: 5.64
ig: @winterrainreads
★★★
this was sadly a classic case of right book wrong time. I absolutely loved the writing and the prose and I found some of the themes really interesting but I just couldn't focus on it. I finished it a couple days ago and I can't even tell you any characters names or really what happened. I'm definitely going to give this another shot though and reread it in the future. as always, I'm not going to have anything groundbreaking to say about a classic that's almost a hundred years old so here are some beautiful quotes instead to hopefully make you want to pick this up!
〝mrs. dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.〞
〝he thought her beautiful, believed her impeccably wise; dreamed of her, wrote poems to her, which, ignoring the subject, she corrected in red ink.〞
〝to love makes one solitary.〞
〝did it matter then, she asked herself, walking towards bond street, did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely? all this must go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely?〞
〝it might be possible that the world itself is without meaning.〞
〝mrs dalloway is always giving parties to cover the silence〞
〝as we are a doomed race, chained to a sinking ship, as the whole thing is a bad joke, let us, at any rate, do our part; mitigate the suffering of our fellow-prisoners; decorate the dungeon with flowers and air-cushions; be as decent as we possibly can.〞
〝It is a thousand pities never to say what one feels.〞
〝peter would think her sentimental. so she was. for she had come to feel that it was the only thing worth saying – what one felt. cleverness was silly. one must say simply what one felt.〞
〝rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame〞
〝human beings have neither kindness, nor faith, nor charity beyond what serves to increase the pleasure of the moment.〞
cawpile: 5.64
ig: @winterrainreads
September 9, 2023
I’m only giving 3 stars because these two books were difficult for me to understand. They reminded me of books I would have to read in English class in high school and try and interpret the meanings. To be fair they were written a long time ago so it’s my own fault that I cannot comprehend it as well. With that being said, The Hours ended up being pretty good and once I got a handle on the writing style and felt like I understood what was going on, it was awesome how all the stories connected in the end. Virginia Wolf’s, Mrs. Dalloway was much harder for me to follow but (not gonna lie) I read the SparkNotes for it and the story is pretty interesting! Plus the dual covers are beautiful and the way the book is printed is SO COOL, that’s the reason I bought it!
December 10, 2022
omg i have so many thoughts i need to collect…… i didn’t enjoy mrs. dalloway nearly as much as i hoped but i’m glad i read it before reading the hours…… michael cunningham you have the mind of a mastermind
March 18, 2023
3.5. really liked the hours, not so much mrs. dalloway
November 5, 2025
For context, Mrs Dalloway was written by Virginia Woolf in 1923, and The Hours by Michael Cunningham was written in 1998.
I was first inspired by the beautiful cover, and it proved to not just be a pretty face. Not only was I enthralled by the literate wonder that is Woolf's consciousness-on-paper (Mrs Dalloway)—human thought poetically translated into prose—but the modernisation and exploration of Woolf's effect on herself and her audience as a second-course (The Hours) fed my starving appetite for more. Woolf disperses the idea of normality; each character, as normal as they appear from the outside, have a complex personality—their actions have deep and significant consequences on others, and most importantly, there is a road of wrong-doing which every character willingly or blindly takes. Like people do.
Cunningham innovates this method and presents multiple perspectives, that unlike Woolf, transcend even time, and manages to incorporate the former author herself into his text. Their coupled stories present the world in variation, from secluded social circles to the many lives that live within the pages of a book. I somehow feel relieved that I was not reading into the queer undertones of Mrs Dalloway, and so I was elated to see the similarities between Clarissa Vaughan's and Clarissa Dalloway's worlds when modernised in The Hours, the problems of yesterday translated with the issues of now.
As a girl, reading about Clarissa Dalloway, and later reading Virginia Woolf's fictive reality brought to life by Cunningham (especially in August, when Mrs Dalloway was originally published), it was truly an experience I recommend to everyone. A hundred years ago, a woman (Woolf) wrote a story about a beautiful, tragic, idealised version of herself and her complex reality. Now, somewhere, a girl in her bedroom types out a paragraph where her self-insert finally meets the television character of her dreams. Woolf's vulnerability and humanity, the thing that made her who she was, the very concept that unites authors and story-tellers, survives even today. And these books are a testament to that idea.
I was first inspired by the beautiful cover, and it proved to not just be a pretty face. Not only was I enthralled by the literate wonder that is Woolf's consciousness-on-paper (Mrs Dalloway)—human thought poetically translated into prose—but the modernisation and exploration of Woolf's effect on herself and her audience as a second-course (The Hours) fed my starving appetite for more. Woolf disperses the idea of normality; each character, as normal as they appear from the outside, have a complex personality—their actions have deep and significant consequences on others, and most importantly, there is a road of wrong-doing which every character willingly or blindly takes. Like people do.
Cunningham innovates this method and presents multiple perspectives, that unlike Woolf, transcend even time, and manages to incorporate the former author herself into his text. Their coupled stories present the world in variation, from secluded social circles to the many lives that live within the pages of a book. I somehow feel relieved that I was not reading into the queer undertones of Mrs Dalloway, and so I was elated to see the similarities between Clarissa Vaughan's and Clarissa Dalloway's worlds when modernised in The Hours, the problems of yesterday translated with the issues of now.
As a girl, reading about Clarissa Dalloway, and later reading Virginia Woolf's fictive reality brought to life by Cunningham (especially in August, when Mrs Dalloway was originally published), it was truly an experience I recommend to everyone. A hundred years ago, a woman (Woolf) wrote a story about a beautiful, tragic, idealised version of herself and her complex reality. Now, somewhere, a girl in her bedroom types out a paragraph where her self-insert finally meets the television character of her dreams. Woolf's vulnerability and humanity, the thing that made her who she was, the very concept that unites authors and story-tellers, survives even today. And these books are a testament to that idea.
June 28, 2022
Within these pages are back-to-back novels, two hundred pages each. One is brilliant and interesting and the other is dull and boring.
Michael Cunningham in The Hours doesn’t emulate Virginia Woolf writing Mrs. Dalloway, he skyrockets above her. The Hours interweaves the lives of three woman, one being a fictional version of Virginia Woolf. It is imaginative, lyrical writing; a psychological tour de force of dialogue and description. And it comes together so nicely at the end. Throughout, Cunningham lets us peer into his characters’ minds; what each is thinking and saying, in real time, to another, or to themselves. It is really, really interesting and well done, whether one likes the particulars of the subject matter at hand, no matter. It is that good.
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway is a let-down. It takes place in a single day in the life of London socialite Clarissa Dalloway, who is preparing for a big party at her house that evening. Some twenty other characters appear, most of them circumstantially, the main one being Septimus Smith, who is going crazy, or already there. It is clearly a take-off on James Joyce’s Ulysses although Woolf never admitted it, and further had the gall to negatively comment on Joyce’s stream of consciousness masterpiece. I got nothing out of Mrs. Dalloway the novel other than the feeling that Woolf was imitating Joyce, and doing a poor job of it.
My overall rating is 4: The Hours 5; Mrs. Dalloway 2, and that primarily for the character Peter Walsh, who decades ago fell in love with Clarissa, was rejected by her, yet obsessively carries her torch, looking very much like Leopold Bloom in Ulysses, and much more the main character than Clarissa or Septimus.
Michael Cunningham in The Hours doesn’t emulate Virginia Woolf writing Mrs. Dalloway, he skyrockets above her. The Hours interweaves the lives of three woman, one being a fictional version of Virginia Woolf. It is imaginative, lyrical writing; a psychological tour de force of dialogue and description. And it comes together so nicely at the end. Throughout, Cunningham lets us peer into his characters’ minds; what each is thinking and saying, in real time, to another, or to themselves. It is really, really interesting and well done, whether one likes the particulars of the subject matter at hand, no matter. It is that good.
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway is a let-down. It takes place in a single day in the life of London socialite Clarissa Dalloway, who is preparing for a big party at her house that evening. Some twenty other characters appear, most of them circumstantially, the main one being Septimus Smith, who is going crazy, or already there. It is clearly a take-off on James Joyce’s Ulysses although Woolf never admitted it, and further had the gall to negatively comment on Joyce’s stream of consciousness masterpiece. I got nothing out of Mrs. Dalloway the novel other than the feeling that Woolf was imitating Joyce, and doing a poor job of it.
My overall rating is 4: The Hours 5; Mrs. Dalloway 2, and that primarily for the character Peter Walsh, who decades ago fell in love with Clarissa, was rejected by her, yet obsessively carries her torch, looking very much like Leopold Bloom in Ulysses, and much more the main character than Clarissa or Septimus.
February 5, 2024
i literally thought that this would be a "she's everything. he's just ken" kind of moment BUT I HATE TO SAY it might've been the other way around this time 😵💫 my apologies honestly to Michael Cunningham for underestimating him and more apologies to Virginia Woolf for overestimating my comprehension abilities. cuz wtf.
3.75 ⭐️
for Mrs. Dalloway, i am like very confused rn bc it's actually kind of big brain when i understood how the titular character was paralleling Septimus, but like when reading it, i was absolutely so lost. there are no chapters/breaks in between, and since it's a stream of consciousness kind of flow, i kinda don't realize we've moved onto a different character. for some extent, i think it's just personal preference and my bad for not appreciating it fully.
4.25⭐️
The Hours kinda outdid Mrs. Dalloway in terms of clarity, and was just a better experience in general. the prose was also quite stunning (both were good, i feel like i could enjoy it more with Cunningham's book because i was less disoriented by the entire stream of consciousness thing and plot). i felt that he emphasized the themes of Mrs. Dalloway more clearly, and i also felt that the characters were more nuanced. tell me HOW a man write female friendships/relationships/characters SO WELL like i went a little insane for that. that was so insane. i honestly can't even pick my favorite character in this book, though i will admit that Laura's narrative kinda still haunts me. yeah maybe i will read more of his books 🫠
-
all in all, this is the most cottagecore book i've ever seen and i feel like i did Virginia Woolf a disservice for not understanding it 😭 i will probably reread this too because that twist at the end of the hours (that i predicted! just didn't predict it early enough) makes me wanna go through it again.
3.75 ⭐️
for Mrs. Dalloway, i am like very confused rn bc it's actually kind of big brain when i understood how the titular character was paralleling Septimus, but like when reading it, i was absolutely so lost. there are no chapters/breaks in between, and since it's a stream of consciousness kind of flow, i kinda don't realize we've moved onto a different character. for some extent, i think it's just personal preference and my bad for not appreciating it fully.
4.25⭐️
The Hours kinda outdid Mrs. Dalloway in terms of clarity, and was just a better experience in general. the prose was also quite stunning (both were good, i feel like i could enjoy it more with Cunningham's book because i was less disoriented by the entire stream of consciousness thing and plot). i felt that he emphasized the themes of Mrs. Dalloway more clearly, and i also felt that the characters were more nuanced. tell me HOW a man write female friendships/relationships/characters SO WELL like i went a little insane for that. that was so insane. i honestly can't even pick my favorite character in this book, though i will admit that Laura's narrative kinda still haunts me. yeah maybe i will read more of his books 🫠
-
all in all, this is the most cottagecore book i've ever seen and i feel like i did Virginia Woolf a disservice for not understanding it 😭 i will probably reread this too because that twist at the end of the hours (that i predicted! just didn't predict it early enough) makes me wanna go through it again.
September 10, 2023
not quite easy to follow. it is one of those books that truly have no plot and are simply the lives of some persons. still, quite beautiful in its aimlessness. for its aims are not to inspire, not to engage, not for any to admire. rather to dispel that a book must inspire and engage, and can simply be about the threads of our common humanity.
the most gorgeous book cover ever.
—
favourite quotes,
The Hours ;
page 17
“These days, Clarissa believes, you measure people first by their kindness and their capacity for devotion. You get tired, sometimes, of wit and intellect; everybody’s little display of genius.”
page 184
“But there are still the hours, aren’t there? One and then another, and you get through that one and then, my god, there’s another.”
the most gorgeous book cover ever.
—
favourite quotes,
The Hours ;
page 17
“These days, Clarissa believes, you measure people first by their kindness and their capacity for devotion. You get tired, sometimes, of wit and intellect; everybody’s little display of genius.”
page 184
“But there are still the hours, aren’t there? One and then another, and you get through that one and then, my god, there’s another.”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 17, 2024
This is a beautiful union of two magnificent novels. It couldn’t get more perfect. From Cunningham’s humble introduction, I have loved nothing more.
“It would be some time before I came to understand that great novels aren’t trying to tell their readers anything specific, and that if these novels mean to improve readers, they do so by imparting an expanded sense of the world; by conveying the most compelling possible proof of the humanity, the depths, the beingness, of people who are not us.
I couldn’t see this at age fifteen. What I could see - which was enough, at the time — was the grace and complexity, the sheer gorgeousness, of the language itself.”
“It would be some time before I came to understand that great novels aren’t trying to tell their readers anything specific, and that if these novels mean to improve readers, they do so by imparting an expanded sense of the world; by conveying the most compelling possible proof of the humanity, the depths, the beingness, of people who are not us.
I couldn’t see this at age fifteen. What I could see - which was enough, at the time — was the grace and complexity, the sheer gorgeousness, of the language itself.”
April 30, 2023
A lovely combination of novels. I’m giving it 5 stars primarily for The Hours, which is hauntingly beautiful, and because it wouldn’t exist without Mrs. Dalloway. The cover art is really lovely as well. All the flowers.
“But there are still the hours, aren't there? One and then another, and you get through that one and then, my god, there's another.”
“There is still that singular perfection, and it's perfect in part because it seemed, at the time, so clearly to promise more. Now she knows: That was the moment, right then. There has been no other.”
“But there are still the hours, aren't there? One and then another, and you get through that one and then, my god, there's another.”
“There is still that singular perfection, and it's perfect in part because it seemed, at the time, so clearly to promise more. Now she knows: That was the moment, right then. There has been no other.”
August 24, 2025
This is a perfect story. There are multiple points of view which can change within a single paragraph. Virginia Wolfe also employs stream of consciousness in her book so that also makes it quite interesting to follow.
The book involves Mrs Clarissa Dolloway ,and other characters she knows , preparing for Clarissa’s social society party that evening. The reader is invited to eavesdrop on not only the words of everyone but also their very thoughts.
Witty, sophisticated, charming, whimsical, funny, odd, intellectual and simple all within London society shortly after WWI.
A masterpiece !
The book involves Mrs Clarissa Dolloway ,and other characters she knows , preparing for Clarissa’s social society party that evening. The reader is invited to eavesdrop on not only the words of everyone but also their very thoughts.
Witty, sophisticated, charming, whimsical, funny, odd, intellectual and simple all within London society shortly after WWI.
A masterpiece !
Read
August 8, 2022So. I did that thing where I judged a book by its cover. The idea of combining two related novels into a single, very attractive volume, was too much for me to resist. But I just can't with this right now. I made it through Mrs. Dalloway, and I guess I am just not at a place in my life where I'm ready to appreciate Virginia Woolf. Which makes a second novel inspired by/modeled after Mrs. Dalloway a tough sell at the moment. Going to put this back on the shelf for a while.
May 30, 2023
i’m not sure how to review this as a double feature, exactly, but i really enjoyed this! i read both books quite far apart, and i started with mrs dalloway.
i’m glad i read it, i liked its stream of consciousness, but for me i think the hours was the book i preferred - it kept my attention, and i liked that i could get so unusually attached to the ordinary events of each character’s day.
also there is the fun bonus that this book is quite literally the most beautiful thing i possess.
i’m glad i read it, i liked its stream of consciousness, but for me i think the hours was the book i preferred - it kept my attention, and i liked that i could get so unusually attached to the ordinary events of each character’s day.
also there is the fun bonus that this book is quite literally the most beautiful thing i possess.
June 12, 2023
It was a unique experience reading these two interconnected novels in one volume. Mrs. Dalloway felt like floating through multiple people’s daydreams and was hard to get into at first. The Hours had some of the most stunning writing I’ve ever come across and I couldn’t put it down. Loved how the three POVs intertwined toward the end, and it made me appreciate Woolf’s style and vision so much more.
November 26, 2024
The Hours is a delightful read, but it can't quite compare to Woolf's masterfully and delicately crafted work. Mrs. Dalloway is a slower and more enjoyable read simply because you need to indulge in the writing. I first read Mrs. Dalloway and then The Hours. Although I prefer the former, I felt that The Hours helped me reflect and analyze Mrs. Dalloway.
January 8, 2023
I’ve read this twice since I’ve gotten it so safe to say I really liked it
April 23, 2023
“but still. there are cakes and then there are cakes.”
July 23, 2023
Better together, which is pretty damn great.
August 9, 2023
es el libro más bonito que tengo y una historia (o tres historias, en realidad) que quiero mucho.
August 17, 2023
the hours > mrs dalloway, with a star for the pretty covers
August 19, 2023
I judged a book by its cover and it’s a lesson learned.
I like the concept more than I liked both reads.
A courageous and ambitious undertaking on Cunningham’s part though..
I like the concept more than I liked both reads.
A courageous and ambitious undertaking on Cunningham’s part though..
October 1, 2023
Mrs. Dalloway was a tough read. It is basically written as a stream of thoughts that jump from one character to another. The Hours was much easier and shed some light on the other book.
October 13, 2023
I enjoyed The Hours but not Mrs. Dalloway. The concept of having both books bound together was interesting. It forced me to read Mrs. Dalloway after I finished reading The Hours
Want to read
March 24, 2024this edition is so pretty <3
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews