Mrs. Dalloway's Party

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the gloves herself. Big Ben was striking as she stepped out into the street. It was eleven o''clock and the unused hour was fresh as if issued to children on a beach.-from Mrs. Dalloway in Bond StreetThe landmark modern novel Mrs. Dalloway creates a portrait of a single day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway as she orchestrates the last-minute details of a grand party. But before Virginia Woolf wrote this masterwork she explored in a series of fascinating stories a similar revelry in the mental and physical excitement of a party. Wonderfully captivating the seven stories in Mrs. Dalloway''s Party create a dynamic and delightful portrait of what Woolf called party consciousness. As parallel expressions of the themes of Mrs. Dalloway these stories provide a valuable window into Woolf''s writing mind and a further testament to her extraordinary genius.