Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide
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This engaging summary presents an analysis of Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf, which tells the story of the titular young nobleman who wakes up one day as a woman and lives for centuries without visibly ageing. Through this transformation, Woolf explores love, gender roles and the restrictions imposed on women by society. The character of Orlando was inspired by Woolf’s friend and lover Vita Sackville-West, and was described by Sackville-West’s son as “the longest and most charming love letter in literature”. The novel remains one of Woolf’s most popular novels, and has been studied extensively by academics in the fields of women’s writing and gender studies.
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• A complete plot summary
• Character studies
• Key themes and symbols
• Questions for further reflection
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- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A good summary with some nice notes and food for thought
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Orlando - Bright Summaries
ENGLISH NOVELIST AND ESSAYIST
Born in London in 1882.
Died in Rodmell (United Kingdom) in 1941.
Notable works:
Mrs. Dalloway (1925), novel
To the Lighthouse (1927), novel
A Room of One’s Own (1929), essay
Virginia Woolf was one of the most important modernist authors of the 20th century and a pioneer in the use of many experimental prose devices. She was part of the Bloomsbury group, an artistic and literary group of intellectuals and bohemians who shared ideas about philosophy and the arts and rejected traditional habits. Woolf was also a prominent women’s rights advocate and the founder of the Hogarth Press, through which she published most of her works.
During her literary career, her prose continuously evolved towards more experimental storytelling and narrative devices. For instance, she was a trailblazer in the use of the stream of consciousness technique (a literary device that strives to capture the multitude of thoughts that pass through a character’s mind as part of a non-linear narrative).
Her life and work were affected by her sporadic mental breakdowns: she was institutionalised and attempted suicide on multiple occasions during her lifetime. At the age of