Orlando

by Virginia Woolf

Penguin Clothbound Classics, 336 pages

English language

Published Oct. 27, 2016 by Penguin Classics.

ISBN:: 978-0-241-28464-3

Virginia Woolf's Orlando 'The longest and most charming love letter in literature', playfully constructs the figure of Orlando as the fictional embodiment of Woolf's close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West. Spanning three centuries, the novel opens as Orlando, a young nobleman in Elizabeth's England, awaits a visit from the Queen and traces his experience with first love as England under James I lies locked in the embrace of the Great Frost. At the midpoint of the novel, Orlando, now an ambassador in Constantinople, awakes to find that he is a woman, and the novel indulges in farce and irony to consider the roles of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. As the novel ends in 1928, a year consonant with full suffrage for women. Orlando, now a wife and mother, stands poised at the brink of a future that holds new hope and promise for women.

62 editions

Anthony reviewed Orlando by Virginia Woolf

Orlando

5 stars

Lire Orlando, c'est se laisser porter par une légère brise à travers les âges et les genres. Si ce n'est pas mon Virginia Woolf préféré, j'y ai quand même retrouvé ce délicieux nectar, cette sève littéraire qui transporte mirifiquement en nous images et sensations avec douceur et bienveillance, et particulièrement ici, avec une réelle jubilation de l'écrivaine. J'ai trouvé quelques passages un peu longs, mais rien qui ne puisse gâcher la lecture, parce qu'il suffit d'une phrase, d'une description, pour à nouveau nous immerger dans le périple multi-séculaire de notre héro·ïne. L’ouvrage mériterait plusieurs lectures, tant il est chargé de thèmes et de détails qui nous échappent — d’autant qu’un siècle après son écriture, bien des références nous manquent.

caracabe reviewed Orlando by Virginia Woolf

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

4 stars

Orlando is the fictional biography of an Elizabethan nobleman who becomes a woman and lives on into the 20th century, where they quickly become adept at road rage. For all its weirdness, this is one of the more accessible of Woolf’s novels. Among other things, the story examines the nature of gender, of sexuality, and (since Orlando is a poet) of literature. Be prepared to stumble over moments of casual racism.