Orlando

Virginia Woolf

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About the book

A Penguin Classics Deluxe editon of Virginia Woolf's pioneering novel, with a new foreword by Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

First masculine, then feminine, Orlando is a young sixteenth-century nobleman who gallops through the centuries, from Elizabethan England and imperial Turkey to Virginia Woolf's own time. Will he find happiness with the exotic Russian princess Sasha? Or is the dashing explorer Shelmerdine the ideal man? And what form will Orlando take on the journey - a nobleman, traveller, writer? Man or . . . woman?

Written for the charismatic, bisexual writer Vita Sackville-West, Orlando is one of Woolf's most popular and accessible novels, a playful mock biography of a chameleon-like historical figure that is both a wry commentary on gender and, in Woolf's own words, a 'writer's holiday' that delights in its ambiguity and capriciousness.

About the Author

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was born in London. She became a central figure in The Bloomsbury Group, an informal collective of British writers, artists and thinkers. In 1912 Virginia married Leonard Woolf, a writer and social reformer. She wrote many works of literature which are now considered masterpieces, including Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, and The Waves.