Mrs. Dalloway

Elegantly interweaving her characters' complex inner lives in an unbroken stream of consciousness, Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway continues to enthral readers with its exploration of the human experience; of time, space, madness and regret. Past, present and future are brought together one momentous June day in 1923. Clarissa Dalloway, elegant and vivacious, is preparing for a party while reminiscing about her childhood romance with Peter Walsh, and dwelling on her daughter Elizabeth's rapidly-approaching adulthood. In another part of London, war veteran Septimus Smith is shell-shocked and on the brink of madness, slowly spiralling towards self-annihilation. Their experiences mingling, yet never quite meeting, Virginia Woolf masterfully portrays a serendipitous unity of inner lives, converging as the party reaches its glittering climax.